


Monsters From the Surface

by casualSnickers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Original Characters - Freeform, Other, merged au, sensitive topics, version two of the previous story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualSnickers/pseuds/casualSnickers
Summary: Frisk and the main group are confused as to why the game doesn't seem to be working as usual; there are no more save points and time seems to be flowing in an entirely new direction. But what's stranger, the citizens of the Underground are befuddled by the introduction of new monsters; from the surface at that!But how did that come to be, and more importantly, how can these new violence-hardened criminals be of use to a dying timeline that's destined for desertion?





	1. Introduction/ Skippable

If you wish to walk into the story blind, skip me. I am not important; merely a tag warning to those who like to look for them.

You may or may not have read the original story I posted here in 2016 called 'A Monster From the Surface'. You shouldn't be able to find it here anymore. I did something with it and it's gone. It's still up on Fanfiction.net under the same title if you want to refresh your memory. This is a remix of that work over years and years of configuring the work and tweaking my OC as well. 

For those of you that have read my work before, this version is entirely different. I mean it. The story doesn't progress in the same way, the characters have completely different tones, the main arcs are different- you'll see what I mean as soon you start the actual first chapter.

If you don't like the insertion of an OC, this is your warning to leave. If you don't like violence, gore, blood, and other things like that, this is your warning to leave. 

This AU takes the Undertale characters you know and love and pushes them into all kinds of ridiculous and violent settings. There will be fights, criminalization, death, and more. If you're one of those people that likes analyzing the worldbuilding and you have a question, go ahead and bug me.

This is my final renditioning of this story. Once I finish, the updates will stop for good. 

Okay, I'm done rambling. The final 2019 edition is here. Have fun.


	2. Down with the Rebels

Paws thrummed against the muddied surface of the forest floor, snagged and chipped claws digging deep into the terrain as the rain poured down. “Keep running,” she screamed, hoping her friends were still behind her. Thunder crackled and shook the ground. The sound of dogs barking was getting louder approaching from every direction. “Spitz! Mirnaw!” She yelled. Her lungs were bursting for air, stinging with the scent of smoke and burning flesh that trailed after her.

“Hazel!” The ragged cat monster glanced wildly over her shoulder as another torn shadow ripped past her and took the lead, their remaining yellow eye seared with fear.

“Spitz!” Hazel gasped out. Lightning flashed and cast his face into harsh white light. One of his eyes was missing as well and a horn had been torn from his skull. He looked ready to stumble to his death, wheezing out a death rattle yet forcing himself to keep running.

“Mirnaw?” Hazel yelled over her shoulder.

“Shut up and keep running,” came a snarling voice from Hazel’s left. They had to keep running. They’d been running for hours now. Suddenly, Spitz cried out in pain as a gunshot ripped through the air and blood splattered against the forest floor. She made to turn and drag him but sharp teeth met in her scruff and hauled her away. “Leave him! Leave him!” Mirnaw shrieked.

“No, I-” Hazel recoiled as a pack of dogs exploded from the wet undergrowth and upon seeing Spitz struggling to stand, closed in on him with a flurry of vicious snarls and flashing teeth. Mirnaw dragged Hazel away with a desperate tug but she didn’t miss the slightly muffled screams of pain that echoed in the night. Spitz was lost to the mob and Hazel was forced to keep running away.

The two monsters kept running, their bodies crisscrossed with wounds bleeding dust and blood that would be washed away in the rain. Their souls were badly weakened and their leader, murdered. The only place to flee to was the only place they had sworn never to go to: Mt.Ebott. “Hazel! The gorge!” The two monsters scrambled to a halt and Hazel felt a sick sense of gratitude that they had left Spitz behind: the dogs were too busy making a snack of him to catch up.

“We need to jump the gorge!” Mirnaw yelled, her black fur sparkling as a fork of lightning split the sky in two. “We have to jump!” Hazel stared precariously at the drop in the ground.

It was a wide valley with its steep sides decorated in jagged rocks and thorned plants. Hazel knew what lay at the bottom: old human junk and the corpses of anybody who had fallen in. She gulped and nodded even though her whole body trembled. She glanced fearfully at her friend; one of Mirnaw’s legs had been torn apart and the bone had been cracked in half during the run. Hazel was not sure her friend would make the jump at all.

“No, you won’t make it,” Hazel argued, trying to make her way towards Mirnaw. “Get on my back. I’ll get you across-”

“Do that and you’ll kill us both!” Mirnaw spat back with a growl edged with fear, shoving Hazel away. “I can make it but we need to go now. On my signal,” Mirnaw ordered. The two padded to the edge of the gorge, Hazel digging her claws in to avoid slipping in with the excess rainwater. She could hear a foaming river surge in the depths of the gorge and prayed that whatever the cost, her friend of many years would survive.

“Jump!” All of the noise suddenly left her tiny little plane of oblivion and Hazel felt a stinging pain ripple through her. She bunched her legs under her and leaped as though her life depended on it. It did. The chill of the storm seemed to batter her pelt and Hazel fought to keep her eyes open. The breath was knocked out of her as she roughly slammed against the side of the gorge, digging her claws into the rock wall. A furious screech split the air and the dogs were getting louder still.

“Mirnaw!” Hazel could glimpse the battered body of her friend slipping from a wet rock shelf. Their black body sat still, almost unmoving on a rock shelf far beneath Hazel’s own. “Hold on! I’m-” Her blood suddenly ran cold as a wave of rainwater surged over the edge of the cliff and knocked Mirnaw away into the dark, but not before Hazel glimpsed the water turning red with blood. “Mirnaw!”

She pulled herself over the cliff and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. The gorge would stop her chasers. It always did. She kept running and running and running until at last, the ground sloped upwards beneath her paws and she could see the muted lights of the mob attempting to find her in the dark forest. The fierce artificial light of a human city sparkled like fireflies in the distance and from the loss of warmth in her body, Hazel couldn’t tell if it were raindrops or tears sliding through her fur.

She turned and faced the wide mountain, clawing herself further and further towards the top until not even the rain could find her. She fled into a large and shadowed cavern, screwing up her eyes to see. This wasn’t a dead end! This couldn't be a dead end! She scrambled around in the dark, glancing for some sort of hole or entrance. This was where the entrance to the Underground was supposed to be! A place where she would be completely safe! As she clawed around in the dark, her forepaw caught on a large open hole in the ground, ringed with vines of ivy and basil. This was the place.

Hazel looked back at the entrance of the cave, her eyes glistening in the shadows. Everything she would ever know would be left behind for her own safety. It shouldn’t have been just her. Perhaps those really were tears on her face. She took a shaky breath and crouched near the edge of the hole. No going back now. She closed her eyes and leaped for the second time that night. And she was falling...falling...falling...

\---------

She hit the ground with a thud hearing something pop, and a hot pain seared through her right paw and shoulder. Her body hurt so bad; it was unbearable to simply stand. She could smell many things on her pelt like mud, leaf mold, and fear, but not so much as the metallic scent of blood. She could tell she had opened more of her wounds, scenting the blood as it oozed out and dripped onto the flowers beneath her. She stared up at the hole she had fallen through. Nothing.

She made to pad away quickly into the darkness but hissed as a hot pain shot up her paw again. She sniffed it carefully: a sprain. She would have to tread carefully. Even as she hobbled into the quiet shadows, the fear never left her. It was oddly calm as she blundered around in the dark. Anything could easily hear her as she was still struggling to catch her breath. She wasn’t safe but as she padded farther she saw various imprints and tracks in the dust, big and small alike. Hazel narrowed her eyes, a glimmer of hope sparking. So they had made it after all.

But she didn’t want to be here; the same place where people disappeared and cowards fled to when they couldn’t protect themselves. Hazel was no coward. She sneered, mostly at herself, and flopped down by the edge of the stony gray walls. She tried to clean the grit and sand out of her wounds, grimacing at her own condition when her muscles began to scream in protest. She was strong. She was supposed to protect her camp. Her group... Her friends. She felt an ache in her soul like the sharpest of fangs and tugged at a torn claw, stifling a hiss as she ripped it off and spat it out.

She was never supposed to run away. The surface was her home. The only home that she had known since she was born, even since her mother died when she was a kid. But Spitz and Mirnaw had forced her to flee that night when Tyvaran was murdered. They ran in fear of their lives and hers. She shivered and forced herself to keep walking.

She tried not to make a sound despite her hobbling, keeping her rounded ears pricked and her nose up in the air. Every little sound sent her fur bristling, her claws unsheathing, and her heart pounding. The passage seemed to lead into an open corridor where the light of the moon could reach in and turn her ragged form silver. She felt vulnerable in the moonlight. Hazel sniffed the air, picking up a hint of flowers even though none grew here. She sniffed again but found nothing else so she kept walking, ignoring the exhaustion in her right arm.

Where there was chipped stone and loose gravel slowly became assorted bricks and grand pillars that rose high into the darkness. Hazel felt an uncertainty take hold of her soul as she backed up a bit. Usually, humans were the only ones who used an architecture style like this so this could only mean bad things. The pillars led one by one towards a marble staircase with a large overarching carved door. Hazel could make out various carvings scratched into the walls. Every one of her instincts was telling her to turn back but Hazel glared defiantly at the doorway and continued. She wouldn’t be caught stuck here.

The next room was darker and Hazel could make out tiny passages hidden in the walls. That creeped her out, but what really did it was the hastened scribbles on the walls. There was a large stone door with a large black symbol leaning against the walls, seemingly broken. Ivy was already growing down the front of it. What had it been for? Hazel crept into the next room but at the scent of water, hurried over to one of the pools and drank. It had been a while since she had last eaten or drank without fear of being poisoned.

It was so dark in here. Hazel lifted her nose and let the scents pause at the back of her throat. This place smelled of weathered rock, water, and flowers as though abandoned and taken over by the elements. Hazel felt a shiver run down her spine as the feeling of being watched suddenly emerged from the shadows. The fur along her spine began to bristle. Was anybody actually down here?

She crawled into the next room and paused, fighting to silence a screech. Something large stood in one of the corners, unmoving but pointing at her nonetheless. She unsheathed her claws and backed away, ready to flee… but the thing didn’t move. As a matter of fact, Hazel didn’t hear it breathing either. She moved closer and upon further inspection, it was just some sort of strange effigy made of cloth. It didn’t resemble anything she had ever seen before; not a human. Probably a monster effigy of sorts.

It was at that moment that her exhaustion overwhelmed her. She dragged herself over to the opposing corner and flopped down against a clump of what smelled to be moss. She tried to lick her wounds again and maybe point out something in the dark, but there was nothing but the sound of running water and her own labored breathing. She laid her head down on her paws with her body turned towards the doorway. Finding sleep would be hard tonight.

\------------------------------------

“I’ve caught you red-handed!”

Sans felt a groan ring in his skull as his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Papyrus and Frisk were still absorbed into a new movie that Alphys had loaned them, found in the dump two days ago. They were way too close to the TV screen and the popcorn kernels from earlier had been spilled everywhere. Some were even on him too. He gave a loud yawn and trudged into the kitchen. A little ketchup never hurt him. He plopped himself down in one of the dining room chairs and put his feet up on the table. Papyrus wouldn’t be there to chastise him either.

“hello?”

“Good evening, Sans.” Sans paused mid-swig. He glanced at the clock on the wall above the TV. Nearly midnight. Shit.

“tori. how are ya’?” Sans said amiably, readjusting his legs from on top of the table. Sweat began to drip from his skull.

“Sans, I do believe you promised Frisk would be back before eleven. It is nearly midnight. Might I inquire as to what is taking so long?” Sans didn’t mistake that low and polite warning tone of hers as truly inquiring. He put away his ketchup and turned on the lights in the living room.

“SANS! WHAT ARE YOU-” Sans pointed a gloved digit at the clock on the wall and mouthed ‘late’ at the two. Frisk jumped up and started to gather all of their stuff in a small blue backpack while Papyrus helped. “HUMAN! WAIT FOR ME!”

“heh. sorry, tori. it’s movie night. the kid wanted to stay and finish the movie with paps.” Sans leaned up against the front door, shrugging on his jacket. He glanced outside, watching as the snow fell in thick sheets. “we’re on our way right now,” he lied.

“Are you walking them out in that blizzard, Sans?” Toriel nearly yelled. He stood watching as Frisk put on jacket after jacket, and with a small thumbs up walked over to the door. Sans held out his hand but the kid pushed it away and signed something at him. ‘I wanna go into town really fast. Please?’ Sans groaned good-naturedly and gently pushed the kid out onto the porch.

“no.”

“Don’t lie to me, Sans.”

“don’t worry about it, tori. i’ll have the kid home soon. it’s just-” Sans had just locked the door only to see Frisk wading into knee-high snow without him. “just takin’ them a while to get their things.” Sans caught up to them and without hesitation, Frisk grabbed a bit of Sans’ jacket slack and they started their slow trudge through the snow. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and Sans heard a low sigh.

“Keep my child safe, Sans. I’ll be up waiting for the two of you.”

“alright, tori. see ya’.”

“Goodbye, Sans.” There was a click and Sans put his phone back into his inventory. Sans shoved his hand into his pocket and began to match the kid step for step.

“so kiddo. what’s the holdup?” Frisk turned back and signed something rapidly at him. ‘I wanna see the camp.’ Sans narrowed his eyes and shrugged.

“the camps? everybody is probably asleep by now, kid.” Frisk frowned but continued to pull him into town. Snowdin was already dark since it was nearly midnight. Only a few shops were open like the Inn and of course, Grillby’s. Maybe Sans would stop in on his way home. Or not. Paps would be up waiting for his bedtime story.

As they entered the center of town, Sans and Frisk glanced towards the stretch of trees that bordered the small town. To Sans’ surprise, he could still hear muffled voices and see a small fire crackling through the trees. Geez! Some monsters really were nocturnal, huh? “i’ll let ya’ look at the camp for a few minutes but then we have to leave. got it?”

Frisk nodded really fast and when the two stopped beside the tree line, Frisk began to peer into the forest trying to make out who was where and what they were saying. The refugees, as the royal guard liked to call them, had started to arrive only a few months prior in swarms from the surface. Most had a language that Sans and the Royal Guard couldn’t even comprehend. Few of them spoke monster-tongue, but those that did were sent away. There were camps in nearly every area of the Underground but Snowdin harbored the most. It was then that Sans could hear a bit of an argument ring in the still night air.

“Ma’am, I can’t understand a word that you’re sayin’. Can ya’ please slow down?” Sans glanced towards the Inn at the bunny innkeeper, Ruby. In front of her was a large monster bundled in frayed rags and torn clothes. They were frantically saying something to the innkeeper and gesturing towards the closed shops. Sans turned his attention towards the monster; most likely a refugee who didn’t speak monster tongue. They adorned a large green badge.

“Y’ dnot ndurelta hvu h’kva’dana? Stytsi’po penasii? Y’ dnot ndurelta. Y’ ertho stysi’po takta penasii fahret y’m wed’poy takta vermt dex. De kjamrt i’to sto utsamyr.” The tall monster kept gesturing at the clothes shop, slowing their speech as if that would help the innkeeper understand him. Why did Sans feel as though he knew that language? He looked at the kid who looked just as confused and yet enamored as he did. This timeline was certainly… different. They just weren’t sure what had caused it.

Sans felt something stir at the back of his mind as the large monster, seemingly having given up, turned around and started back into the woods. They paused after glimpsing Frisk trying to approach them, but shrank away hastily and disappeared into the forest as quick as they could. Something was missing here, and whatever it was left a bad taste in his mouth. What had caused this drastic change? 

“come on, kid. tori is expecting us.”

Even as Frisk walked towards his outstretched hand, Sans looked back into the woods and saw that the fire in the refugee camp was still blazing from afar. Fire? Why did that seem so familiar to him? He thought back to the monster when it had turned around to leave. They had orange eyes, right? No. Sans cast the thought away with a sick feeling. Orange eyes? He couldn’t even see what the monster looked like under that ragged cloak. Why would he think they were orange?

“alright. let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice the use of a different language from time to time in the story. The language used by the refugee monster is an unknown language to the protagonist of the story. It plays in part in establishing the plot lines.
> 
> Don't worry. I'll translate any future uses to you.


	3. Moths to Light

Something hard jabbed her in the side and Hazel woke up with a stuttering snarl. She rolled over and glared at the men outside her cage baring her fangs at them. Great. Another rude wake-up call. She pulled herself into a sitting pose and scratched behind her ears with a hind paw, rattling her chains. What was today’s schedule supposed to be like? She snorted, stifling back a hiss as the two men quickly muzzled her and attached a metal leash to the ring in her magic collar. They dragged her forward and out of her cell as quickly as possible. She could smell the fear rising from them too and smirked.

She had seen the inside of this lab many times before, passing similar chained and powerless monsters huddled in their cages. She knew a few of them. Only a faint number of them lived past three months down here. This was not really a lab but a prison with monsters forced behind anti-magic bars. She had been down here for so long that she had dulled her claws scratching tally marks into the walls. She noticed the other monsters flinch to the back wall of their cells, shivering when they passed.

The difference between her and them? The other prisoners looked at her with the same amount of fear as the prison guards and she knew exactly why that was. She wasn’t the only one to receive that treatment. The two men bickered with each other, each brandishing electrical sticks of some sort at her whenever she slowed down the tiniest bit. Tasers, they called them. How they made them was a mystery. Humans were a mystery, she mused to herself.

Hazel was led into an empty research room away from the other monsters and hooked onto a small faucet in the wall. Ah yes, the ‘waiting’ faucet. She scratched the same spot behind her ears and waited silently for her show stars to come in. After all, boss monsters always had the pick of the litter when it came to brawling.

The room was tiled and multiple stains covered the walls. Blood? Check. Disease? Check. Dust? Double check. Broken furniture was piled up in the corners. She was familiar with a few sharpened chair legs and a ripped apart couch cushion, but everything else was created by the other monsters. The floor gently sloped downwards to lead to a small drain. What was it used for? Take a wild guess.

It was that time of the month: purge time. She flexed her dull claws and began to sharpen them against the floor. At least there would be some action tonight. The scientists had come up with this cruel way of reducing the monsters in their lab before she had been brought to this place after her mother had passed away. The monsters who they deemed worthless would be pitted up against each other in a brawl to the death. Boss monsters like Hazel would wait and watch to see who the winner would be.

If the conditions were right and the winning monster still didn’t seem to be of any value, Hazel would be pitted against them and as Hazel was very experienced in brawls, she didn’t doubt what new stains she’d be adding to the decor. It was kill or be killed down here and Hazel was notorious for having no mercy in her brawls. It was the reason why numerous battle scars had found their way onto her dusky brown pelt.

She was already covered in multiple bloodied and bandaged wounds that were healing. What was one more added to the list? The two guards yelled something at both sides of the room and vanished, leaving Hazel alone in the filthy room to clean the gunk from underneath her claws.

Her paws itched to mess with the clunky collar around her neck and cause a few dents. She had tried before but, nada. Nothing. The thing was indestructible when it was on. They were held together with electricity stemming from a far away source. As long as that source was still buzzing, she and the other monsters were as useless as rocks. She had no idea how humans had found a way to suppress a monster’s magical energy without killing them but whatever the case, she’d find a way out of here someday.

Suddenly, both doors at the other sides of the room opened and a group of humans walked in towing two monsters behind them as well; one for each side. On her right was a small child, Hectarian by the naturally withered and gaunt looks of her. From the south. The poor thing was already littered with welts and bruises and her blue and green eyes glistened with fear. The usual pixie wings that Hectarians were known to have were bent and ripped, dragging behind her as if the child couldn’t muster the strength to rip the useless appendages off herself. She had some battle scars but none deep and imposing. The child took one look at Hazel and started backing up.

“No, no, no! Let me out! Let me out!” Hazel frowned. She didn’t like it when they brought children to her, especially when they were crying or screaming as desperately as this kid was. They knew what they were here for. A headache would form in a few minutes, no doubt. Hazel scanned this kid and could smell an infected wound on the kid’s chest. That couldn’t be good at all.

On her left, five humans led in a tall and stocky adult monster who also looked to be Hectarian but with a colder charm. All scales and no fur with a blank look in his eyes as his footsteps shook the ground. Hazel could read that look: disbelieving confidence. The guy looked to her first with a smirk but then to the child with a perverted smile.   
“More bloodshed so soon?” The scaled monster drawled in a toneless rough voice. Ah. He was obviously from the Faction. Pijuan. She’d heard of him; another boss monster such as herself that took pleasure in rilling the fear from the cages. She’d have no problem skinning him. “Won’t this be fun.”

“About as fun as getting deep-throated by a cactus,” Hazel responded. “Which you obviously have some experience with from the way your voice sounds, am I right?” She chuckled at the way his smirk turned into a fanged snarl. Her deep laugh seemed to stop the girl from crying but it didn’t stop her from putting her back against the farthest wall. The humans left the three monsters in the room together and retreated behind the reinforced door, one of them holding a clipboard of sorts. The magic collars on both the adult male and the little girl clicked and turned a different color: red.

Both of them experienced what Hazel liked to call devil’s jolt. They were doused with an unbearable shock of electricity and anti-magic energy, one that would actually harm the magic body of the wearer. She’d had her fun days with those collars in her early days of being here. Their first jolt had left them trembling and dry heaving. The longer they took in killing each other, the more dosages they would receive until somebody ended up dead.

Ah. So Hazel would be watching the humans wipe the girl off of the floor later. That was also fun. She would just have to wait her turn then. The humans milled about in their room and not even seconds later, a glass partition went up between her and the other two monsters. Now this would be a real show to behold.

Hazel felt the shouts from her dream turn into hushed voices that gently grazed her ears. She felt small hands of sorts flicker across her fur and linger on her back, a strange warmth spreading across her wounds. In the frame of a second, Hazel was on her paws, snarling at her attackers with unsheathed claws. In the faint light of what looked to be around morning, Hazel could see a cluster of fleeing moths in the shadows. Moths and what looked to be something large tumble away farther into the darkness.

When they had all left, Hazel frantically sniffed around her pelt searching for new wounds or prints but she found none. As a matter of fact, some of her wounds were missing and were replaced by raw skin or clumps of fur. Odd. She shook her head and padded out of the room. Whoever… no, whatever they were, they had no business putting their hands on her. Next time, she’d be prepared. She shouldn’t have slept there. Maybe in a more sheltered spot where that creepy effigy wasn’t looming.

The lighting in the ruins had changed to a strange and empty glow with little cracks of sunlight filtering in here and there. In the light, Hazel could see just how abandoned this place was. Vines of all sorts crept through the cracks in the rune-inscribed walls and flowers seemed to grow easily, taking in the faint sunshine as well as they could. There were trees too and lodged inside of the walls, Hazel could see their thick roots snake around the room and grow towards what looked to be the ceiling. There was only the sound of wind through the rocks and dripping water.

The place wasn’t nearly as creepy during the day as it was during the night. It reminded her of ancient ruins, long abandoned and since taken back by nature. Remembering that the walls of the ruins were inscribed with large pictograms of sorts, she paused and took the sight in. Humans had structures like these back up on the surface. But seeing such a huge display, underground of all places… it just felt eerie. Compared to how the ruins seem to expand endlessly upwards, she felt like an ant in the place.

She walked into the next room and paused. “Haven’t I been here before?” She sniffed the air and picked up her own scent stemming from longer down the corridor. She remembered falling and spraining her paw there too. Yup. She had definitely been here before. She turned around only to glimpse a few of those bird things from earlier watching her from the shadows. “Those things again,” Hazel growled lowly. She would have to pass that way too. “As long as they stay away from me, there won’t be any trouble,” Hazel muttered under her breath.

She padded back into the darkened room and immediately noticed three of them hovering around the moss clump where she had fallen asleep. The moss was nearly soaked through with blood as was the stone around and beneath it. She rolled her eyes and turned through the other entrance, choosing to ignore the moth-like creatures.

It was just a tad lighter in here than the night before, but still dark enough for Hazel to need to squint her eyes and guide herself by following her scent and hearing alone. The wind that blew in from the start of the passages blew from behind her and seemed to curve to the right. She followed slowly, feeling the air dampen and the scent of river water rise.

She came to a stop in front of a wooden bridge, a few cracks of light from above casting its true form into the light. The bridge was surrounded with trenches of still water, ivy snaking down from the ceiling to dip its roots in. But the bridge was uncrossable without injury. Tall metal spikes jutted up from the bridge and when Hazel moved a paw over the spikes, they retreated back into the platform. Was this a trap? What sort of being would build this? To possibly protect a section of the ruins maybe?

She backed up only to scent the strange creature from before and a group of others like it a few paces behind her. One of them glanced at her with small frightened eyes before slowly edging around her towards the bridge. Lucky, Hazel thought to herself. They could just fly over them.

The creature hovered over the same spike panel but the spikes didn’t move. A few more flittered out from behind Hazel and grouped up on the same panel and eventually, the spikes retreated.

What were they trying to do? Show her the way? She ignored the moth-creatures and glanced at the pale water surrounding the bridge. Were there spikes in there too? The water looked deep enough and when Hazel managed to put her sprained paw in the water she couldn’t feel anything. She would have to cross, but with her sprained paw it would be a challenge.

Hazel slowly lowered herself into the water, and with her good paw trailing along the side of the bridge she began to tread water, moving slowly at first but eventually gaining speed. The creatures that were fluttering about the spikes seem to buzz louder and crossed the bridge quickly. Hazel felt something in the water tickle her leg but thankfully, she had just reached the end.

She took a deep breath of air and stretched out her sprained paw to claw at the surface, doing her best to ignore the hot pain that surged underneath her fur. To Hazel’s amazement, a few of the moth-creatures had begun to hover above her and take hold of her frayed sweater trying to pull her from the water and onto land. They weren’t all that good at it but Hazel did manage to get her other paw onto the land and before long, she pulled herself out of the water.

Why were the creatures helping her in the first place? She shook out the water from her pelt and only then noticed the sting of the water as it entered her wounds. Great. She’d need to nurse her wounds even more later on. Check for parasites as well. It was getting too quiet in these desolate and dusty ruins. She would fill the void herself then.  
“A long empty hall? How non-suspicious.,” Hazel began, deciding to speak aloud. This hall was a lot brighter than the rest of the ruins. 

Hazel looked around as she passed through, noticing the creatures from before seemed to lead her ahead. “Where is the light coming from? I thought we were underground?” Hazel asked the void as she stepped into a patch of pale sunshine. It felt as though it had been years since she had felt a warmth on her pelt.

One of the moth-creatures seemed to notice and pointed up at the ceiling. Where the roof looked to be high-vaulted, Hazel noticed that there were many cracks in the rock roof that let in the sunshine. “That’s slightly worrying considering this is underneath a mountain. Wait, can you understand me?” Hazel asked lowly.

“yes.” She barely heard it’s small squeak.

“Why are you following me?” She started off simply. Anything to fill the eerie quiet of the ruins. The moth-creature, seeming to have lost its voice, pointed to Hazel’s wounds. “Weird but acceptable. Who are you?”

“whimsun.”

“Whimsun. Interesting name,” Hazel responded, crawling over a fallen pillar. This hall seemed to go on forever. “Are there more monsters around here or is it just you guys?”

Whimsun shook its head as the group reached the edge of the hall. It squeaked something to its friends and then fluttered into a dark room to the left. Not even seconds later, Whimsun came out carrying a small piece of something. It didn’t have a smell but it was shiny and looked as though it were made of plastic. But plastic was a human material. Hazel quickly backed away from Whimsun and shook her head when it tried to give her the strange thing.

“No, I don’t want it.” Whimsun seemed to look really confused but held onto it nonetheless. One of its friends disappeared down the corridor. “Wonder where they’re going.” There were two exits to the room and seeing as how one led to the room where Whimsun had found the plastic, Hazel took the other exit. She could scent the flowers from earlier much easily now and noticed red petals spilling out of the next room.

“What’s with this place anyways?” She grumbled, padding into the next room. The next room looked fairly simple as it was a narrow corridor leading into a room with a strip of spikes. Maybe this room was too simple. Her wounds still ached terribly but with each step, she found herself able to bear the pain more easily. She stepped forward but Whimsun hurriedly flew in front of her towards the middle of the room and dropped the thing it had been holding. Hazel held back a surprised yowl as the floor caved under the plastic piece and disappeared.

“Oh. So this is a trap, huh? Interesting.” Hazel noticed specific markings on the floor and after watching Whimsun float back up with their plastic piece, began to delicately set their paws down on the floor. Again, Whimsun floated back in front of her only to lead her towards the other side of the room. It dropped the plastic piece on a similarly marked floor tile but the floor didn’t cave in.

“Oh. You’re showing me how to get past this trap. Thanks.” Hazel carefully tried the tile once before padding across it quickly. The floor felt hollow and cold under her pads but as she finished, the earth felt solid again under her paws. Whimsun led the group into the next room and Hazel rolled her eyes. Another spike trap. Except that Hazel could easily leap over the strip. Or at least, she could try given her injury.

She started at a steady trot and when it came time to leap, she swished her tail for balance and leaped. What she wasn’t expecting was for the spikes to rise slightly mid-jump. She hissed as the metal tips caught the flesh of her thigh and ripped it, spilling blood onto the trap. So maybe these traps were more advanced than she had previously believed. The moth-creatures seemed to blanch at the sight of the blood of the spikes.

Hazel slammed into the ground, groaning as she peered back to look at the new wound. It was a long a narrow gash that started at the top of her hip and ended behind her knee. She knew that trying to clean the wound now would burn more fiercely than any fire she could conjure.

“What? It’s just blood.” Hazel loosely dismissed the group and stumbled further down the hallway when she was stopped in her tracks. A room similar to the one before stood in her way, except Hazel could feel her pawsteps echo across an entirely hollow floor. Every tile looked the same and she could see no claw holds in the walls. “Oh great. More traps.” Maybe she could feel her way across? Whimsun didn’t agree and tried to push her back.

She opened her mouth to argue but stilled when she heard heavy footfalls coming her way. Loud voices echoed throughout the corridor and the darkness of the Ruins seemed to shrink on her. Two figures struggled through the doorway on the far side and Hazel could just barely make out a pair of red eyes staring straight at her.


	4. I Don't Trust You

“Ms.Toriel! Ms.Toriel!”

Toriel had been startled from her chair by the fireplace counting down the minutes until the kitchen timer would ring. With Frisk out adventuring, the house was quiet enough to hear a pin drop from her room. Somebody was knocking on her door as though trying to break it.

“Just a second dear,” She called. She put a bookmark in between the pages of her novel, heaved herself out of her large reading chair, and walked slowly towards the front door. “Yes, can I-”

“Ms.Toriel!” Toriel was taken aback by the urgency of Loox. He normally visited her at night whenever the inspiration struck him. What was he doing knocking on her door looking so panicked in the morning time? “I found you!” Loox was gasping for air, his one good eye blinking rapidly.

“What’s the matter?”

“Ms.Toriel, there’s a… a thing in the Ruins!” Toriel froze. A million thoughts were running through her head right now. Humans? Or monsters? Children?

“A… a thing?” She repeated, folding her reading glasses and slipping them into a side pocket rather quickly.

“Yeah, I don’t know what it was but when Whimsun and I started to poke at it, gently of course, it snapped at us like some wild animal! You shoulda seen the teeth on it! Somethin’ sharp and fierce!”

Toriel was puzzled. It sounded as though a new monster had entered the Ruins. Maybe it was a refugee. She had grown quite used to Loox making a raucous when a few months ago monsters from the surface began to tread through the Ruins. Perhaps this ‘thing’ was no different. “Come in and tell me a bit about it while I grab a coat, dear.”

“Oh! Thank you, miss! Okay, so Whimsun woke me up this mornin’, flyin’ this way and that way. Gibbering something about blood.”

“Blood?” Toriel murmured quietly, pulling on a shawl. She pulled the two out of her house, locked it behind her, and let Loox lead the way.

“Yeah, blood. All over the place! On the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling-”

“The ceiling?” Toriel recoiled with a horrified expression, quickening her stride. Loox paused and glanced away with an embarrassed frown.

“I may have exaggerated a bit there but really! There really was blood everywhere! Your pretty yellow flowers were all crushed and there was blood all over ‘em. So I go up to Whimsun and I say, ‘what happened here?’ and Whimsun is shaking his head, scared and all.”

“Where is Whimsun?”

“Dunno. Hopefully, the guy came to his better senses and hid. He noticed the blood formed a trail and I told the guy ‘no way i’m following that,’ because it was all dark and scary.” Toriel and Loox walked deeper into the Ruins, and Toriel disengaged nearly all of her puzzles with a swipe of her large clawed paws.

“Keep going.” She encouraged.

“Weeell, Whimsun feelin’ something brave goes to follow it and a posse of his comes out ready to go too, so now I gotta follow him or I’m looking something cowardly, right?”

“You’re not a coward, dear,” Toriel reassured him.

“Thank you, miss. So we’re followin’ the trail and they get past that first puzzle o’ yours so we’re thinking ‘it’s gotta be a refugee or somethin’ like that’ but then I remembered that the door had broke down so Whimsun and I keep goin’. And it’s so dark in there! But we followed it and all of a sudden... BAM! The trail stops in the room with that dummy. You know the one.”

“I do. Go on.”

“I saw the thing first, of course. Layin’ up against the wall. I tell ya, the thing was huge! It looked so fearsome in the dark, Ms.Toriel. Whimsun still on his bravery trip goes closer and I tell him ‘you’re gonna get hurt whimsun’ but does he listen? No. He goes closer and then- get this: he touches it!”

“What happened after that Loox? Did Whimsun get hurt?”

“Sorta. At first, whatever it was didn’t wake up or nothin’. Whimsun was lookin’ at it and yeah, whatever it was was bleedin’. Whimsun wanted to heal whatever it was and I saw those wounds. Real nasty wounds. No monster can make those. So Whimsun started healin’ the thing and the wounds were goin’ away but Whimsun wanted to heal the biggest wound. A real ugly one, deep too. So he gets goin’ and right as he touches the thing, it wakes up.”

“What happened then?”

“It snapped at us! I couldn’t see because I came to get ya and all, but I could’ve sworn whatever the thing was was crunching Whimsun between its’ teeth when I was runnin’ outta there. Real sharp things, I tell ya’!”

“I see.” The two had walked past the Frogit’s usual hangout spot, Loox following closely. “I came ta find ya’ because I said, ‘Ms.Toriel would know what to do,' and ya’- wait.” The two halted. Toriel could now hear it too. From the next room, voices were springing up. “Ms.Tori-”

Toriel walked into the room and the first thing she saw was something small and dark crouched in the farthest corner from her. Toriel could see Whimsun and his group of friends hovering nearby the thing even as the creature hissed loudly at her. Hiding as if it had known that she would walk through that door. Loox had quietly walked in after her and at the sight of Whimsun, grinned.

“Whimsun! Buddy! You’re okay!” Toriel noticed the thing in the corner shrink back at Loox’s voice and edge further away into the ruins.

“Loox. Hush now," Toriel commanded as she studied the thing. Well, it wasn’t a thing. Certainly a monster by the looks of it. It had ragged, bristled fur but Toriel couldn’t tell if the brown coloring was from mud or filth. She could see a pair of eyes watching her. It was wearing something just as torn as its fur and underneath the cloth, Toriel could just make out a few deep wounds. Whoever it was was dirty, hurt, and clearly hostile. Toriel could make a good guess that the monster was from the surface. She was mostly concerned as to how it had come by all of those wounds.

One of the Whimsun had floated over away from its group and presented Toriel with a small Monster Candy. It seemed to point at the monster in the corner and make pleasant motions.

“Buddy? You’re not hurt?” Loox pointed out. Whimsun shook its head and pointed more urgently at the monster, then at itself and the group of Whimsun in the corner. “What’s up?”

Toriel then tried taking a step over her own puzzle to get a closer glimpse. As expected, the monster recoiled with a hiss and stepped away so that Toriel couldn’t see it anymore. Toriel stood where she was and waited. A few minutes later, a face of some sort glimpsed around the corner and its eyes narrowed. Toriel tried the next best thing.

“Hello there. Do not be afraid, young one.” The monster flinched as soon as she had started speaking and with every word narrowed its eyes even more. “I will not hurt you. My name is Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. Who are you?” There was absolute silence afterward. Whatever was around that corner certainly didn’t want to come out. Like a child that had done something bad and was hiding to keep their crimes hidden, Toriel supposed.

“Hey, Whim?” Loox piped up. “Can the thing understand us?” Toriel wanted to know that too and from the looks of it, apparently not. But to their surprise, Whimsun nodded. Toriel tried again.

“You don’t need to hide from me. I won’t hurt you and I know you doubt my words. But I have no reason to cause you harm, young one. May I come closer to see you better?” The monster didn’t answer but it didn’t recoil either this time. A good sign. “I am going to get closer to you, young one. Please do not run away.” 

Something low came from the monster, a sound that Toriel could not discern. Maybe it was the monster speaking to her? She listened again but heard nothing.

Toriel disengaged the puzzle so that the entire floor became solid once more. She slowly edged forwards. Some of the refugees from the past were hostile like this: they refused to be near her or talk to her. It was only when one of the children who could speak monster tongue, told her to hold up her hands if she was unsure of things. So that’s exactly what Toriel did. The closer she got, the more aggravated the monster looked but it didn’t lash out at her as expected. She was now in the same hallway as the monster.

“Don’t be afraid. My name is Toriel. I live here in the Ruins.” As Toriel edged closer, she could now clearly see what this monster truly looked like. It was a monster of some sorts resembling what she had heard to be a dog but strangely with feline qualities. Its fur was naturally brown. A dusky brown color actually. It had long and ragged fur with huge paws, equally large black claws, and it wore ripped clothes as well. What stood out amongst the monster’s dark fur was a pair of solid orange eyes, narrowed and slitted, framed darkly against the lingering shadows on their face.

Loox hadn’t been joking when he had said that the monster was injured. Toriel could easily make out multiple tears and cuts along the monster’s body, revealed by bloody clumps of fur or missing patches of fur. She restrained a gasp from escaping when she spotted a small trail of blood behind the small thing. But what really worried her was the large tearing wound in the monster’s back. It was as though a giant knife had carved out chunks of the monster’s back and it looked to be healing poorly. What could’ve done that?

“Tell me young one. What is your name?” Toriel wasn’t expecting a reply. Most of the refugees didn’t understand her and those that did were too afraid to even speak to her as if she would hurt them. The thing just seemed to glare at her, the hissing dying down to a low growl. Toriel repeated herself but again heard nothing but the continuous growl. And to Toriel’s surprise, a low voice eventually answered her.

“...Hazel. My name… is Hazel.” Ah. So the monster was a child. Feminine by the sounds of it. The fear that had shown in their stance had eased slightly and they no longer shrank away. “I’m Hazel.” The monster said again, still defensive but they had put their claws away.

“Hazel. That is a very pretty name.” Toriel only then noticed that Hazel was holding one of their paws against their chest. “What’s wrong with your paw? Do you want me to-” Hazel immediately shrank back and narrowed their eyes. “Hmm, I see. You are from the Surface, yes?” Hazel nodded slowly “I am going to help you find the others. There are many monsters from the Surface who have entered the Underground. I thought I might show you the way.”

Hazel glanced at them nervously, taking a few steps back. “I-I don’t trust you.” They growled. “How do I know you’re not lying to me? How do I know you’re not going to trick me?” Toriel felt something stir in her soul and let a sad smile grace her features.

“I know you do not trust me but I only ask that you let me help you. I do not like to see injured monsters, youth or not. You do not need to trust me for me to lead you to help. Will you let me help you?” The monster looked offended but didn’t hiss at Toriel. She gave a small helpless nod but didn’t come any closer.

“I.. is there a way out of here?” They asked. Toriel felt a pang in her chest but nodded and began to lead the way.

“The ruins are only one section of the Underground, young one. There are many other places that exist as well. I see that you are wounded, young one. I’m going to call you a doctor to have a look at those wounds when we get you somewhere safe. Not out here in the open. Do you mind?”

"...I can tend to them myself.”

Toriel kept a good bit of distance with the child, glancing over her shoulder at the kid. “You need to have those wounds looked at. They look to be quite nasty. Where did you get them from?” Toriel immediately regretted her choice of words, the child instantly clamming up and refusing to speak while doubling the space between them.

They stopped in the room with the melted cheese and Toriel pulled out her cell phone. Apparently, Hazel had never seen one and eyed her suspiciously. She dialed Sans first. He would know how to handle the situation. The phone rang a few times before a familiar voice picked up.

“mmhmm?”

“Good morning Sans,” Toriel greeted her long-time friend warmly.

“tori? it’s eight in the morning.” The skeleton grumbled. Toriel could just barely hear the noise of a tv in the background. She focused, her tone becoming more serious.

“I need you to get Dr.Alphys and meet me here in the Ruins. Somebody has fallen and they need help.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.

“a human?”

“No,” Toriel breathed. She cast Hazel a quick glance. The child was curled up in a corner, Whimsun and its group whizzing around her like excited butterflies. She didn’t seem to like it and kept her eyes focused on Toriel. She was confused as to why this child had such a strong stare trained on her. “A small monster child. She’s very injured. There’s blood, Sans. Tell Alphys to bring plenty of syrs. The strong ones.” The dial cut short and Toriel sighed. She put her phone away and called for Hazel to follow her. The others had just begun to leave.

“Are you alright, child? What is wrong with your paw if you don’t mind me asking.”

“...It’s sprained,” Hazel responded quietly. “Twisted during the fall down here.” Toriel paused. She would have to change the way she worded her questions.

“And the rest of your wounds? Loox tells me that you were bleeding quite heavily when he found you.” Hazel who had comfortably lacked behind a stride or two looked the other way once more.

“...I’m fine. Just cuts and scrapes.” The two continued walking when Hazel started to talk. “So monsters have fallen into the ruins before now?”

“Yes,” Toriel answered, casting her own suspicious glance back at the child. “Though, the last refugee fell about three months ago. You are the first in a long time. Why is that?”

“Huh?”

“How come you are separate from the other monsters?” Toriel asked again. “When monsters began to come, they came in groups and families, rarely alone. And most of them came during the same month.”

“I… I was caught up, is all. Busy.” Hazel spoke, a lot quieter than her other responses. Her eyes didn’t leave the floor. By then, they had managed to reach the hallway that led to Toriel’s house. Midway through the door, Hazel stopped in her tracks and backed up, her hackles bristling.

“tori, are you here?”

“Sans! There you are.” Toriel left the child behind and turned to see Sans sitting on the front steps. Alphys was there too with a bag full of all kinds of tools. They both looked quite worried, Alphys having a very interested gleam in her eyes behind her thick spectacles. “I was hoping you’d be here before we arrived.” Toriel smiled gently.

“where’s the kid?” Sans asked slowly. Toriel slowly turned around and upon noticing that Hazel hadn’t left the hallway yet, walked back. There she was, hiding behind the wall many paces away with an accusing glare on her face.

“I’m not going past here,” She growled, her ears flattening to lay against her skull.

“They won’t hurt you, dear. They are my friends.” Toriel moved back and turned to talk to Sans and Alphys. “Sans. Could you go inside and fetch me a wet towel? I should have a few in the washer. Bring some pie as well.” She turned back to Hazel who had merely gotten farther. “Come now. We just want to have a look at you.”

“No.” Hazel retorted, her claws flashing. “I don’t trust you and I don’t trust what you’re up to.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’ve heard that before. Convince me.” Hazel’s eyes glinted in the pale light but not with anger. No, the only emotions that strengthened the light in their eyes were fear and uncertainty. Toriel frowned. Many children from the surface had the same reaction to her words. Some tried to attack her and some fled entirely, getting lost in the twisting paths of the ruins until eventually, their options turned back to following Toriel out. Which one would Hazel be?

“You are afraid of being tricked. I understand.” Toriel stood, backing out into the middle of the hall so that both Sans and Alphys could see her. “Many have come to me with a strong emotion of fear.” Hazel had opened her mouth to speak, her eyes glinting with fury now, but Toriel spoke again. “I know not of what has happened to make you fear an unarmed monster such as myself but hear me now. There is only one way out of the Ruins, and beyond that are cities full of other monsters like myself. You can find a way to slip past me but what then? Where will you go and how will you run away from your fear then?”

A long pause resonated along the ruins, broken only by the sound of Hazel sheathing her claws. “...Okay. I’ll follow you.” The fear in the child’s eyes was replaced solely with uncertainty and they closed the gap slowly. Toriel took a chance and held out her paw. Hazel seemed confused and dazed before taking her paw in a silent agreement. Toriel walked as slowly as she could, knowing that the child was most likely hiding behind her back. She walked a few more paces before knowing that the child had suddenly stopped again and the same expression of fear had washed over their face twice.  
“What is wrong, child?”

“I hope you don’t think I’m going in there,” Hazel growled. “I don’t like going into stranger’s homes.” Toriel laughed and beckoned Alphys closer. The child certainly didn’t like it but refrained from growling again.

“I understand. Hazel, this is Dr.Alphys. I want her to look at your injuries. Especially that sprained paw of yours.” The kid fidgeted but eventually sat down against the trunk of an ash tree and glared at Dr.Alphys. “There. See? She won’t hurt you.”

“Not yet,” Hazel commented darkly.

Alphys gave Toriel an abiding look before doing a once over of the child. “Hmm. You were right Toriel. She certainly is- certainly, there’s quite a lot of- of wounds. Where did she- could she have gotten these from?”

“I don’t know. She won’t say.” Toriel said sadly. “Child, where did you get these injuries from?”

“...They’re just wounds from getting here.” Alphys and Toriel had turned to see Sans exit the house with a pile of wet towels but he stopped at the sight of Hazel. “Who’s that?” Hazel asked quietly.

“That is Sans. He will also not hurt you.” Toriel stated matter-of-factly. It was a lot easier taking care of wounded refugees one-on-one. Hazel seemed to stiffen before she shot a bored expression at Toriel.

“Is there anybody in the Underground that is actually capable of hurting things or is this just some fever-induced dream?” Toriel smiled. The child was starting to lose their hostilities towards her. Slowly.

“Sans, can you throw me one- a few towels maybe? Or, don’t throw them.” Alphys had taken one from the pile that Sans was holding and carefully began to wipe Hazel’s wounds free of dirt. “I’m really- actually surprised they aren’t infected. A few wounds I’ll certainly need to look at.” Once Alphys had cleaned all of the dirt from the wounds, she laid the towel to the side.

“Can I take a- maybe see your sprained paw?”

“Is that an order or a question?” Hazel asked cautiously holding their paw closer to their body. 

“A-an order, I think. If it’s not too bad, I might be able to heal it.”

“It’s a sprain, of course it can be healed. Just takes a few days.”

“A-a few days? Try a- a few seconds. Can I see your paw?” Hazel hesitantly extended her paw for Alphys to examine. Alphys gently ran her clawed hands around the joint and after a few minutes pulled away. “Ah. There’s definitely swelling there. Sit still please.” Toriel watched as Alphys took out a small purple flask from a box behind her. Hazel seemed to intensify her glare, observing as Alphys uncorked the flash and began to pour the solution onto the wound. The liquid slipped around her wrist before slowing and seeping under the skin. Toriel studied how Hazel’s face went from angrily confused to simply confused and slightly grateful. She would have done it herself but felt more relieved that Alphys could handle it.

“T-there! Go ahead and try putting your paw to the ground. Let me- tell me if it starts to hurt.” Hazel slowly pressed her forepaw into the ground and the smallest of smiles appeared on her muzzle. She held up her paw and flexed the dull claws in their sheaths, again pressing the paw to the ground. “No pain?” Alphys quipped.

“...None at all...Thank you. It was starting to become a real pain in the tail.” Sans let out a small chuckle at that one which made Hazel jump away behind the tree trunk. Toriel stood from her place by the steps and motioned them inside of the house.

“I know you dislike what I have to say but it would be better if you rested here for a while so that we could check the rest of your injuries. I would also like to get you cleaned up. You are covered in soot and dirt, child. That means you will have to come inside.”

Hazel had a disbelieving look in her eyes, furrowing her brows. “So you’re changing your words now?” Hazel again looked back to her wrist before getting to her paws. “But you did help me. I suppose I’ll choose to trust you again.” 

Toriel was pleased. It was always her niche to be a caregiver. That was all she ever wanted to do after all those… years of solitude. “I’ll have to see about what to give you to eat as well. When was the last time you ate, dear?”

Hazel with a small flinch after crossing into the house said without batting an eye, “A few days actually.”


	5. Memoirs

Hazel woke to a sweet smell lingering in the air, her limbs strangely heavy and her mind blank. Her eyes flew open with alarm. She was lying in a bed and somebody had apparently thrown a heavy and warm blanket over her. It was semi-dark in the room except for something small that glowed over in a corner of the room. “What the-” She was cut off as she yawned. Well, she certainly hadn’t been drugged but she hadn’t the faintest of clues where she was or how she had gotten into this bed.

She stumbled out of the bed and looked around. It looked to be a sort of child’s room. It reminded her of the one she had had back at her mother’s house all those years ago. Man, it had been years since she had slept in a bed. “I forgot how comfortable they were,” she murmured as she stretched. Her nose picked up the sweet smell from earlier and followed it towards the table beside her bed. A small plate of pie had been left there for her.

“Of all things, why pie? Ew.” She grimaced and left the fruit pie alone. She wasn’t a fan of the texture and besides… it was magic food. She could tell by the overly-sweet tang that sour the insides of her nostrils. It could be drugged anyway. She turned her attention back to the room that she was in. What had happened to get her here? She walked over to the door and opened it as quietly as possible. Bright light from the hallway flew in and made her squint her eyes. “Oow.” She cautiously drew her head around the corner and took a good sniff.

“Huh? I smell… flowers?” Wait a second. Flowers? She took a better sniff of the house and caught two scents she had registered the day before. How long had she been sleeping? She recognized the scent of the goat monster and that lizard monster that had healed her sprained paw. Oh! She must be in the goat monster’s house! “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

“Is that them? Are they finally awake?” The voice nearly shattered her ears and made her elicit a small yelp as she retreated back into the room, shutting the door as she backed away from the door. Who on earth was that?

“Please, not so loud,” A gentle voice chided from down the hall. She could hear loud footsteps approaching the door she hid behind but no hand made to turn the door handle. “The poor thing probably just woke up. Child? Are you awake now?” Hazel slowly opened the door and peered around the corner to see Toriel carrying a strange basket of what looked to be clothes down the hall.

“I am now,” She grumbled, letting go of her ears. Toriel looked surprised to see her, setting the basket onto the wood floors. Hazel raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Oh! I didn’t know you could stand on two legs, dear. Goodness, you’re nearly as tall as me! Well, now that you’re clean and bandaged, we thought we would talk to you a bit more.”

“Wait, what? Clean and bandaged? What are you-” It was only then that Hazel noticed she was wearing completely different clothes than before. She had on a large dark blue shirt of sorts with black pants. That and her back had been bandaged up neatly. So was her tail and limbs. “What did you do to me? Don’t tell me you- wait a second. Why is it that I can’t remember even getting into that bed? Or this house for that matter. Did you… did you drug me?” Hazel hissed. Toriel seemed to recoil in disgust.

“Heavens, no! I would never… drug- I would never do something like that, child! The thought is absolutely appalling. Why would you ever think of such a terrible thing?” Hazel felt uncomfortable at the way Toriel was searching her eyes, opting for just shaking her head and breaking off eye contact.

“Well, why can’t I remember getting in this house, or into these clothes for that matter?” Hazel scowled. “That’s usually… the sign that something has been tampered with.”

“You fainted right as you came through the door a few hours ago. Dr.Alphys said it had something to do with magical exhaustion and poor HP. So after I cleaned you up and bandaged you myself, we thought we’d let you rest.” Toriel ended her words a bit hesitantly. Hazel then actually took a look at herself. It had been a long while since her fur wasn’t covered in grime or dust, and no wounds seemed to split her fur. Even her teeth were cleaned.

“Well, don’t I feel violated? I’ve only been asleep for a few hours, ok. Oh. Wait. Where’s my sweater? The red and gold one I was wearing?” Toriel picked it out of the basket she was carrying, a look of disdain crossing her features.

“I washed it and the other clothes that you were wearing, dear. Though, the clothes you were wearing were horribly torn and ragged. You look much better now.”

“I can just sew them back together. It’s no big deal, but thank you.” Toriel shifted the basket to one arm and looked Hazel up and down once more.

“Hmm. Well, now that you’re awake and calm, I made some food for you so that you can regain your health. It’s in the dining room down the hallway. A few… friends. Yes, friends, are waiting for you. You should recognize them. They would like to ask you some questions.” Hazel narrowed her eyes before making shaky steps down the hall.

The house was very clean. Yeah, that was one way to put it. She had never seen a house this immaculate, or so well done for that matter. The whole place smelled like lemons... and acid for some strange reason. There were a few things she didn’t recognize like a small giant red plastic thing on top of a table, and nearly everything in the house seemed a bit too… human. The woven rugs, the pictures that hung on the wall, the stairs too.

“heya.” Hazel nearly jumped out of her fur as a large figure trudged into view. Wait. Hazel sniffed the air and the scent seemed to match up to somebody again. Didn’t she know this person too? It was a skeleton, large and stocky, and dressed in winter clothes. He had large abysmal sockets with pinpricks of light, and his smile, although not matching human skulls, was wide and friendly. “do i really smell that bad?” The monster joked.

“No, I just can’t see all that well. I’ve scented you before, though. You’re…. Sans? Is that right? That’s what Toriel called you.” She could now recognize his scent better. He smelled of tomatoes, salt, and something metallic that made the back of her throat burn. “You were there too, with Toriel and Alphys, I mean.”

“i was? no kitting.” Sans gave her a wide grin and Hazel was confused. She cocked her head slightly to the side. Seeing the monster again and up close, his presence made her slightly uncomfortable.

“What? Why are you smiling like that?” The grin faltered from Sans’ face and he shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  
She heard Toriel laugh from down the hallway and then it hit her. Her old leader, Tyvaran, used to play with words in the same way. He would mess with everybody before they would go on quests trying to lighten the mood. Wanted to ease the tension with his horrible jokes. God, they were just awful sometimes but she always laughed. God, how she missed him. She reprocessed the pun through her head and it clicked. She nodded thoughtfully.

“Oh, I get it. Kitting. How funny. I‘ve heard that one plenty of times before,” She smiled. Hazel walked slowly into the room and immediately noticed that there were two strangers in the room, large and imposing monsters with metallic armor. The feeling of fear began to spike within her again, her ears flattening against her skull again as she backed away from the two things.

“really? well, did you hear the joke about the-”

“Can we get to business now or are you done talking?” Now that she was close up, Hazel could process that the speaker from before was really loud, even without trying. She drew her fur over her ears in an attempt to muffle the voice and found a comfy spot in the corner away from the armored monsters. Not even a few minutes later, Toriel had entered carrying the plate of pie that Hazel had forgotten on the table in the room.

“You have not eaten the pie that I left you, child. Are you feeling alright?” Ew. Just looking at the fruit pie made you a bit queasy. She didn’t hate pie, she just disliked pie with fruit. Meat pies were fine though. “You don’t look sick, though.”

“I lost my appetite. Not all that hungry,” Hazel lied quickly. Sans raised a bone brow, reclining back in a wooden chair a few paces away from her.

“not hungry? tori said you haven’t eaten in a few days. i’m no expert but a normal monster should be starving by now.”

“We surface monsters are… hardy, to say the least-”

“But surely you must eat something? You’re very underweight for the weight in which Dr. Alphys wrote you under.” You flinched and backed away but Toriel seemed to make a connection. She looked at you, then at the pie, then back at you.  
“I believe to know what is causing this problem.” Toriel carted off the plate and left faster than Hazel would’ve guessed and disappeared only to come right back with a small wooden crate. 

Hazel watched as Toriel set the crate down on the table and began to pick a few things out of it. She recognized carrots, corn, cabbage, apples, and what looked to be bananas but she couldn’t tell. Were they going to give her fruits and vegetables? She supposed that she could manage fruits even if she was more of a carnivore but beggars can’t be choosers.

“Hmm. Do you prefer veggies or-” Toriel looked as though she were squinting at something near the bottom of the box. “Ah, yes. Veggies or meat? Why is there meat in here?” Hazel couldn’t help but vouch for the meat. What kind of meat was it? Hopefully, beef. The last thing she had eaten was a couple of mice and that didn’t fill her up all that well.

“Uh, the meat, please.” Sans looked a bit surprised but Toriel laughed and headed into the kitchen with a pleasant smile, accidentally leaving the meat behind. Sans walked over and handed her what looked to be a large cut of fish meat sealed in plastic. Plastic? Really? She held the plastic encasing gingerly, staying quiet as Sans resumed his banter with the guards.

She supposed she could just use her claws to tear open the package but upon closer inspection, noticed that her paws had been bandaged and that only a few of her claws remained. Right, she had ripped a few of them out on the way to the mountain. Had Alphys fixed those too? She shrugged and put the plastic seal between her teeth. She could just rip it open with her teeth and that’s exactly what she did.

“Not bad.” The package still had a bit of blood in it and it was salmon blood which surprised Hazel. Where did they even get this? Hey, at least the cuts looked good. She sank her teeth in and after a few chews, swallowed. It wasn’t bad but it couldn’t hold a claw to the surface salmons. It was a bit strange to not have to skin, decapitate, and debone the fish but food was food. She had just finished the first cut when Toriel’s yell blasted through the noisy chatter.

“Hazel, what are you doing?” All noise had stopped and everybody was staring at her while she chewed slowly. They looked disgusted and one of the guards looked extremely uncomfortable under their armor. Hazel swallowed slowly.

“Eating? What’s wrong?” She asked innocently.

“It’s… you’re eating raw meat, child. You could get sick with all kinds of nasty things! I was going to- why are you still eating it?” Toriel yelped as Hazel took another chunk out of the fish. It was stringy but it would have to do. She swallowed and then raised her eyebrow.

“Like I said. Us surface monster are pretty hardy. We have digestive tracts made of steel. Well, some of us do. Why? Do you cook your meat?”

“Yes!” Toriel struggled to say. ‘I could cook it- or, what’s left of it, for you. It’s much safer.” Hazel shrugged and took another chunk out of the fish earning another disgusted look from Toriel. She would have to ask where this fish came from.

“Nah. It’s better raw. More flavorful.”

“That’s disgusting.” Hazel turned her head as one of the armored guards in the corner finally spoke up. She could barely make out what they looked like under all that armor. More than that, she had never seen armor like that. Usually in the rebellion, they simply used petrified tree bark, smelted stone, and thick cloth. “I’ve never seen anybody eat their meat raw.” Hazel suddenly snorted at the monster’s choice of words and nearly choked on their salmon.

“You could’ve said that in a different way, but ok.” Sans started bursting out in laughter with a small ‘my child!’ by Toriel in the background. The guard merely looked confused. “Cooking it takes too long so lots of surface monsters just choose to salt their prey or eat it how I am. Besides, nobody’s got time for that up on the surface.” Hazel quickly finished the rest of her salmon and licked her paws clean.

“Well, at least you’ve eaten.” Toriel made out at last, replacing the lid back on the crate. “I wish to check your stats to see if your health has been restored. Hazel made a gesture to try to stop them but before she could do anything, Sans had made a check and out flew her soul. She wasn’t sure what confused her more; the four looking undisturbed by her LV or Toriel looking at her rising HP bar with relief. The stats were there and then they weren’t. Why could she see them? And what was ‘HP’? “Ah. Your health is returning. Are you still hungry? I believe there is more meat in that crate, but I will cook it this time,” she added with a stern stare of maternal disapproval.

“No, I’m-”

“Nonsense! Your health may be returning but not as much as I’d prefer. And you’re still so skinny! While I cook- you needed to ask the child a few things, yes?” Hazel turned back to the armored monster, apparently there for her, who had made an attempt at a bow before taking a stance in the doorway that led to the stairs. The tense atmosphere had resumed once more.

“That’s right. We did.” They drew up a spear from thin air, placing it so that it blocked the doorway completely. Hazel felt the hairs along her spine raise. “My partner and I are members of the Royal Guard. We protect the king and the underground. It is our duty to monitor the comings of any new beings from outside of the Underground. Due to the observation of your high level of violence, we were required to search you.”

“Wait.” Hazel shook out her pelt in confusion. “How many of you were here when I was passed out?” Hazel asked angrily. “I’m starting to feel like some sort of exhibition to stare at.”

“Please remain calm. Otherwise, me might have to resort to more forceful tactics of maintaining the peace.” The monster had gripped the spear behind him, Hazel feeling a shred of fury burn her ears. Toriel had deceived her. “We were notified of your appearance three hours ago. Once again, it is our business to observe and report every surface monster that passes through here.”They claimed. But then their voice had deepened. “If protocol had been standard, and if you were like any other refugee with a low level of violence, the Royal Guard would take you to one of the camps we have installed and let you go. But you’re an abnormal one. Your level of violence is too high to allow standard protocol to continue.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hazel asked, her hostility returning to her now in the form of her fur bristling and her teeth lashing. 

“You have been reported as containing some of the highest level of violence ratings since the refugees started appearing down here. And down here, level of violence means bad business.” Hazel stilled but the hostility never left her. Oh. So that’s why they didn’t react when they pulled up her stats.

“Yeah, I was wondering why you didn’t seem fazed by my LV when you pulled up my stats a few seconds ago. That makes sense,” Hazel murmured, nodding her head. “But what are these ‘camps’ are why are the refugees being held in them?”

“I’ll get to that later because we won’t be taking you to a camp. No. See, when the surface monsters started coming down here, a few like you had high LV, and we didn’t want them to pose a threat to other low-leveled monsters like us.”

“It’s hard to believe you’re low-leveled, actually.” Hazel retorted. “Then again, I can’t tell because you’re under all that armor.”

“Let me tell you something.” The second armored guard came forward. “Level of violence is a rare occurrence here in the Underground. It is absolutely illegal to acquire LV down in the Underground. So it’s been for many years. We do this for precaution of the common folk.” All four of them glanced towards the kitchen where Toriel was cooking the meat. She sounded as though she were humming something to herself. “Very few monsters with LV are allowed to walk the streets now. I will notify you now that you may choose not to speak of your resons as to obtaining such a high LV. You will however, be detained in the capital for questioning.”

Hazel had to take a moment to think. Memories of her days as a legion member seemed to crowd them as did memories of her first kill. She couldn’t catch her thoughts and held up one of her bandaged paws to try and recollect them. The pain of tearing claws seemed to pale in comparison to the brawls in the underground laboratory or when she had been whipped back in the dungeons. The words didn’t seem to come to her… at first.

“so what’s up with that high lv, kiddo?” Sans asked from his leaned-back chair.

“Be more… specific. What are you asking me?” Sans raised an eyebrow as though it were a simple question, the pinpricks of lights in his sockets winking out. He sat up so that his chair sat flat on the floor but crossed his legs.

“what have you done to get a level as high as thirty-five?”

Oh. Now the question clicked and the bad memories that came with it clicked into place as well. Revenge quests, near-death experiences, killing for self-defense, or in the rare case, killing because of rage. But Hazel wasn’t fazed. She had been through too much: too many friends lost, too many homes destroyed, too many wounds gained, too much trust lost. But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She didn’t want to. The recent memories of losing the rest of her close friends made her throat close up. 

“I… I can’t say,” She finally spoke, keeping her eyes on the ground. What would they do to her when they took her in for questioning? Would they force her to speak via torture? Maybe they would force her to speak soon. The first guard was crossing their arms in irritation.

“You’re just like the others we’ve captured before. They don’t want to talk about their past crimes. You enjoy hurting people, don’t you?” They assumed.

“I don’t,” She retorted angrily.

“Then speak up,” the guard growled. “You’ll have to take sooner or later.” Toriel had taken this moment to reenter the room with a plate of food even though her expression told Hazel that she been listening in as well. “I want a straight answer from you. You can tell your story to me or waste away in a cell for however long it takes you to tell. I don’t care which.”

“I’m… I don’t want to talk about it,” Hazel spoke, keeping eye contact with the guard. “I can wait.”

“just talk kiddo,” Sans commented lowly. Hazel knew that he was interested in her tale as well. She certainly didn’t want to talk about her past. Not around anybody. It was like cutting open a sore wound. “the guards are right. they won’t hurt you-”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hazel stated defiantly, her voice level and unwavering. 

The first guard pinched the bridge of their nose and upon coming up with a question that they believed to be a dead end, finally spoke. “Alright then. Tell us this. Why is it that you have fallen down into the Underground months after the others?”

Hazel blinked. It had been three months? No. That’s couldn’t be right. The surface dwellers had only started to emigrate in large groups when Tyravan had been assassinated. But that wasn’t three weeks ago. No. that was two weeks ago! “Three months?” She confirmed.

“Yes. Three months have passed since the first refugees began to appear here in the Underground,” the second guard confirmed. They pushed their helmet back a bit. “Most of the explanations we got before had something to do with a ‘dead king’. Do you know anything about that?”

“Dead king. But… but it was only two weeks ago that- and they said dead kings? Then that means it’s really been three months.”

“Three months since what?” The first guard growled, anxious to get a move on.

“Since our last king was slaughtered,” Hazel croaked, the fierce anguish of grief piercing her soul. She tried to still the tremble of her paws but failed, grasping the edges of her tail as she tried to make sense of her frazzle memories. “There were eight, though. There’s no way it’s been three months since Tyravan was murdered. It was only two weeks ago! But then… I just don’t understand.”

“Who were the kings?” The second guard spoke up. Hazel paused her rambling, looking into the faces of the four that faced her. A shrill silence pierced her mind.

“The… the kings. They were… they were the leaders of the surviving monster groups. Our leaders. They watched over us. At least, they kept us safe,” Hazel began, her eyes clouding. “They started being- started dying three months ago.”

“And you said that these kings... they started dying, right? What can you tell me about that?” The second guard asked, their voice gentle and calm.

“I have no idea. My king was the last to be killed,” Hazel argued, her voice a rasp “Groups don’t talk with other groups. Very rare. Only in case of emergency. I had no idea.”

“No idea of what?”

“That the kings were being picked off. Killed. Murdered in cold blood. We-” Hazel paused, her memories of the previous years thrumming against the back of her skull like a caged animal. She dropped her eyes to the floor, holding a paw to her mouth to keep her from speaking anything else.

“What? You what?” The first guard demanded. 

“Our kings are dead,” She spoke aloud. “Many months since the first king fell, three months since my king has fell,” She uttered. “That is all I will say.”

“what were you doin’ about a week ago?” Sans asked suddenly.

Hazel blinked slowly, her eyes rising again. “Retreating,” she answered, not recognizing the word as it slipped out of her mouth. “Leaving my home behind to get here. To escape with my friends.”

“But you fell alone,” Toriel spoke, her words edged with grief as though puzzling together the meaning behind Hazel’s words. “Your wounds are from the same source. I see.” Hazel felt a flash of grief and anger cloud her eyes. No, they didn’t understand the brevity. The sacrifices it took to get here. The blood that had been spilt… “What happened to them?” Toriel asked but Hazel knew that she wouldn’t want to hear the answer. She herself didn’t want to recount the events from yesterday.

“Dead,” she rasped. “They’re dead. All of them. Both of them. Kings and peasants, jailed and innocent. What does it matter?” She spat. She could feel her rage pooling. Three months ago. That was when the last of the groups had apparently retreated. How many had deserted their kings without taking up arms? Had she fought back in vain for monsters who would sooner take a blade at their throat than fight for their homes? “That’s the story you wanted, right? There.”

“What was your reason for falling now instead of three months ago?” The first guard repeated.

“Defending my home.” The room went quiet, a long pause making the fading tension awkward and confusing. Hazel stared at the floorboards she had already come to memorize, her eyes slowly clearing up.

“Hmm.” Toriel had set down the plate of food and took a seat in her chair. She looked very disturbed but slightly... accepting? “Many times, refugees have been questioned in my house before they have gone further. I have heard tales of murder, loss, and betrayal. You speak of defending your home. I cannot find fault in your answer, child.”

“But we can,” The first guard responded. That was months ago. Once again, your high LV makes you a very suspect character down here.

Hazel let a faint smile grace her lips. “You said there are other monsters with high LV like me? I wonder if they’re down here,” She began to talk to herself. “Fenre? Bertigh? Maxli? Are they down here as well? Possibly Tetrick?” Hazel smiled. “And here I thought those cowards couldn’t leave any faster.”

“Are they friends of yours, child?” Toriel asked.

Hazel nodded absently, letting previous memories flit by. “You could say that.” She looked towards the guards, her smile disappearing to be replaced by a weary grimace. “What now? Are you going to imprison me?”

The first guard grumbled under their helmet. “No. If it were up to me, maybe.” The second guard gave her a small shrug. “But like I said before, we’ll have to take you in for more questioning like the other high-leveled monsters. Can’t guarantee what will happen after that.”

Hazel looked thoughtful. “That sounds fair.”

“over here.” Sans spoke. He had been watching her from his place by the door for a long time. Hazel had observed him as his expressions shifted and changed, and by now, his face had returned to normal. He pointed a digit at her back. “i was here when tori was fixing up your wounds but how’d you get that injury on your back?”

“Yes, before Toriel healed it, we were alerted to the high amount of physical strain you had been found with,” The first guard interjected. Time seemed to freeze as Hazel slowly lifted up her shirt and turned to examine the bandages on her lower back.

“You… you healed it?” She rasped.

“Yes. It took quite a bit of magical energy to fix and there’s no fur there at the moment but the skin has been repaired. Thank Dr. Alphys for reopening the wound for me to heal.” Toriel spoke up.

“You healed it. You actually got rid of it.” Hazel’s voice was low and she carefully ran a paw over her back. Strong solid flesh lay underneath. The jagged scars had been removed and the nerves in her back had been restored. “Holy shit, you actually got rid it!” She mewed happily.

“language. so how’d you get it?” Sans asked again. Hazel stopped her happy pawing at the wound to turn back around.

“Humans,” she responded monotonously.

“Humans gave you that?” Toriel gasped. “I knew it was a deep and old wound when I first saw it. It must’ve been so painful!”

“how even old are you kid?”

“Seventeen.”


	6. Old Friend, Fenre

“And what does the ocean look like?” The second guard asked enthusiastically. Hazel struggled to swallow the potato chunk on her fork before answering.

“Giant never-ending abyss of water.” It had taken an hour or two for the first guard to scrape up everything they needed to do before Hazel could leave the Ruins. That included taking a photo, finding a passage badge, securing a magic link system, and others. She had figured out that their name was Bala and their partner’s name was Minx. They were currently gone at the moment so both the second guard and Toriel had used this hour to the best of their abilities. Toriel by continuously force-feeding you food and Minx by asking you question after question. Not rude questions but just mainly out of curiosity.

“Can you drink it?”

“No.”

“What? Why not?” Minx demanded, tapping his metal fingers against the table. Hazel absently picked at a piece of cooked meat on her plate.

“It’s salty and has the excreted waste of hundreds of thousands of aquatic creatures living in it like fish, sharks, and whales. All the salt will just make you thirstier and you’d most likely get sick just from drinking it.”

“excreted waste?” asked Sans. He seemed to be crossing out things on a sheet of paper a seat away from you. He called it a ‘crossword’. Maybe it was a human thing.

“The bathwater of hundreds and thousands of creatures.” Hazel elaborated. She finished the last piece, sighed, and stacked it on top of the other two plates. Toriel was sitting nearby in a big chair, occasionally glancing over to make sure that Hazel had eaten everything. When she heard the plate clink, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled, and went back to her reading.

“That does sound very unhygienic,” Toriel quipped. Hazel squinted across the room at her.

“good one, tori.”

Minx was about to ask another question when a loud bang echoed from the basement. A few loud metallic stomps later and Hazel could take a good guess who it was. Bala walked in with a bag of stuff, dumping it unceremoniously on the table.

“The Head of the Royal Guard has received notice of your presence. We are ready to take you to confinement. You have ten minutes to retrieve anything of personal worth.” Hazel patted the folded sweater and shorts beside her, knowing Toriel had let her keep the borrowed clothes that she currently had on.

“I’m already ready to go.” She drawled.

“Good. Stand up slowly and proceed to the stairs so that I may detain you. No sudden moves.” Hazel stood up slowly and walked over to where Bala had pulled out a pair of large steel cuffs, both of which were embedded with a strange blue crystal. “These cuffs will prevent you from using any magic during the transportation to the confinement center. Do not resist arrest,” Bala growled in their dull tone.

“Well, don’t I feel like a living being?” Hazel commented sarcastically. Underneath, she was sweating. The authorities from the lab had used collars like the cuffs to control their prisoners. Hazel and her group had never found a way to resist the effect of the collars. She held back a growl as Bala tugged her closer and roughly snapped the cuffs around her wrists, the metal seeming to mold to her pelt until there was no way that she could slip her paws out. She didn’t feel any different, wondering if they would force her to keep the cuffs on forever.

“Stay still. Wait until I give you the order to move.” Bala reached a giant scaly hand over the cuffs, twisting both of the crystals. Hazel felt a sudden strong tug on her soul, her fur bristling as a current of electricity jolted through her body. These were just like the collars. “Do not resist arrest. No sudden movements, understand?” Hazel was starting to panic. How had they developed the technology for these things?

“You will be in front of me as we depart the Ruins. Come on soldier Minx.” Minx saluted before giving a proper goodbye to Toriel and Sans, taking up his position in front of you. 

“Right.” Minx led the way out of Toriel’s house with Hazel being careful to stay within yanking distance but as Bala sped up, Hazel switched back to four legs with a stretch of the spine. Minx glanced over their shoulder but said nothing. The three of them had walked through an underground passageway, no doubt a part of the ruins, and after pushing through two stone doors and one grassy open cave, the three of you were greeted by bitterly cold winds.

Hazel almost couldn’t believe it. How could the dry and moist ruins transform into a snowy forest? Before she could stop and think about it, Minx started walking again and Hazel was forced to follow. Huge towering pine trees cast shade onto the snow-covered ground and tossed snowflakes into the air. The cold wind came and ruffled her fur, bringing the scent of prey and chilled leaf mold. She could hear something like music drift in and out in the wind. Hazel felt something pulse inside of her soul. Wherever she was, it felt as though she were home up on the surface, reminding her of the winters spent camping in the northern forests. It felt good.

\---------------

Hazel sat quietly in her cell, absently thinking about the active anti-magic cuffs that remained on her wrists. She jangled the long chains against the tile floor. It was the only entertainment in this place that the guards allowed her to have. This cell with nothing but the walls, floors, bed, and toilet reminded her of the lab cells. The only upgrade was the bed which had no pillow or blanket. Again, she was an animal in a cage. Hazel had been in this room for a week and only half an hour ago did the monsters interrogating her leave to get the results. The prospects of freedom were nowhere to be found. At least, that’s what she had been told. 

The silence was draining. Absolutely draining. She reclined back on her excuse for a bed, deciding to face the cell wall as she closed her eyes. At least there was an actual door to her cell. She pricked her ears, listening to the sounds of other refugees like herself talking to themselves from their own rooms.

“Is there any fresh water in this jail?” Came one voice.

“Just sleep little one. Time will pass by quicker,” Came another.

Hazel rolled over onto her back, staring lazily up at the wall. Sleeping just wouldn’t work for her. Too many nightmares. She truly wondered if any of her old acquaintances were still alive down here. Most monsters fled when the first king was slaughtered, drowned like a dog and slashed from his neck down to his groin. They were afraid for their safety. After all, the kings weren’t supposed to die. She could understand that much.

Hazel snarled in anger. Neither was Tyravan. The last king. The king of pacifism. No, that wasn’t quite right. Hazel got to her feet and began to pace the room, taking comfort in the noise of her movements. Tyravan wasn’t a pacifist. He just preferred sending others to do the dirty work for him. Not that Hazel minded since she had once worked for her king not only a month ago. He took little pleasure is designating people to be killed. The other kings though...

Hazel hardly knew any of the other kings. She’d only known Tyravan. And when he’d taken her in, she had pledged to defend him and his group with her life. How the tables had turned! A revenge plan gone wrong and now she was stuck down here in the wake of the death of her close friends. She glared out of the tiny window of her cell and slumped down onto the bed. “Cowards,” she muttered. If so many monsters did not run away and desert their homes, perhaps Hazel would’ve had a shred of dignity with her as she ran with her tail between her legs back to Ebott.

She paused, hearing dragging footsteps echo near her cell. Monster tongue. There were two people speaking and Hazel could hear the swaying of chains as the sound got closer and closer to her prison cell. She drew her legs to her chest, her eyes narrowing as the sound paused right outside of her door. One of the guards peered through the narrow window before opening the metal door and standing right in the doorway.

“No sudden moves, prisoner.” They then took a slow step to the side and in walked a group of three monsters, a familiar face right between the two. Hazel screwed up her eyes. No. No, wait. The guards walked the monster in, taking their chains and placing them on a hook a few paces away from Hazel’s bed. They then looked back to Hazel. “No fighting. Space is limited. Don’t worry. You won’t have your new roommate for long.” With that, the three guards left the cell, leaving Hazel and the newcomer on their own.

“Fenre?” Hazel muttered. The monster on her left raised his head, opening his large wild eyes to peer at her in confusion. There was a still serene moment of silence between the two. 

“Hazel,” a rough voice responded. “Naaz din. Prak nor'a yal kruuz din viir gamma?” Hazel smiled, her bottom teeth poking out from her lips.

“Ik prak, naaz din. Ik prak.” She was almost overjoyed to see him again. She cleared her throat, ridding her eyes of the tears that had threatened to spill. “Fenre. Il tach ik il kruuz din salir. Ik pros a'mal krig.”

Fenre let a crazy grin light up his face, his long snout crinkling. His dark gray scales seemed to lift from his face and his blue and yellow eyes gleamed. “Il kar thrum a’salir om din, Hazel. It is nice to know you still speak the tongue of kings,” Fenre rumbled. True, it had really been months since she had seen the overly brash subordinate. Last she’d seen, he had been crushed under a rockfall during a previous siege on a human settlement.

“How long have you been here, Fenre?”

“Moons,” The beast monster replied. “Countless moons. Time passes fast in dull surroundings. Let us talk a while; nom vir thrum a'tur. They are dead now? Hlia? The kings have fallen?”

“Yes. The last king was slaughtered weeks ago.” She suddenly looked up, a sarcastic smirk on her face. “And where were you, pruma? Din lok a’tur prak tvin davn hlia,” she pointed out. “Prok din a’yal paaz nil ham az prak?”

Fenre grew sheepish, Hazel raising an eyebrow at him. His eyes were dusted in apology. “Din fruk il myur, din. Il hasyr il davn med tor. It was all I ever wanted.” She glimpsed the same grief in his eyes that she harbored in hers. “My king has been dead for so long. Mer prak. I just wanted peace.”

“I did too. We’re in the same patch, friend. Vir tam prok krum a'lir nav, krosis?” 

“Quiet in there!” A guard yelled, sticking his face in through the narrow door. “Either speak monster tongue like the rest of us or stay quiet!” They shut the door in anger. Hazel glanced mischievously back at Fenre as she saddled over to him. 

“Prak gir a'mir viti spral a'me chal pro ik fich. Fenre. You know a bit about speaking as the Underground monsters do, right?” Fenre then winked at her.

“Sal. I am not the sharpest blade but I know monster tongue.”

“Good.”

A few minutes later, the three guards from earlier sauntered in and retrieved Fenre, Hazel only being able to wave goodbye at him before the three deserted her cell. And then she was left to stare at the walls again, waiting until the lights were turned off and the sounds of her fellow surface monsters were quelled.

“What are they going to do to us down here?” Asked one voice.

“When are we going to be free?” Asked another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> (Also, it's pronounced Fehn-Ray (Fenre)
> 
> 1: Naaz din. Prak nor'a yal kruuz din viir gamma?/ My friend. How long has it been since you've seen the sunlight? 
> 
> 2\. Ik prak, naaz din. Ik praz. Fenre. Il tach ik il kruuz din salir. Ik pros a'mal krig./ Not long my friend. Not long. Fenre. I never thought I'd see you again. Not after the last seige.
> 
> 3\. Il kar thrum a’salir om din, Hazel./ I could say the same to you, Hazel.
> 
> 4\. Nom vir thrum a'tur./ Let us talk a while.
> 
> 5\. Hlia/ Dead
> 
> 6\. Pruma/ Coward
> 
> 7\. Din lok a’tur prak tvin davn hlia. Prok din a'yal paaz nil ham az prak?/ You disappeared back when the second king died. Have you been hiding down here all this time?
> 
> 8\. Din fruk il myur, din. Il hasyr il davn med tor./ You are making me uncomfortable friend. I defended my king with honor.
> 
> 9\. Mer prak./ So long.
> 
> 10\. Vir tam prok krum a'lir nav, krosis?/ We both have blood to our names, don't we?
> 
> 11\. Prak gir a'mir viti spral a'me chal pro ik fich./ How fun it is to know a language that these guards will never master.
> 
> 12\. Sal./ Yes.


	7. Eyy, Town Buddies!

Refugees who could speak monster tongue were rare and even rarer so was a Legion member with a somewhat clean record. It was either be sent to a refugee camp or be dusted to avoid bad blood in the community. Hazel was currently stuck on the fence, as were a few friends she had discovered to still be alive. Fenre was god knows where in the prison but she could sometimes hear him talking to himself from a ways away. She had figured out that Bertigh was alive too, only having glimpsed him as she was paraded down to the investigation room for questioning again.

The three of them had become veterans of the jail. About a handful of monsters disappeared from the halls every day. Where they ended up at, Hazel didn’t know. She hardly knew that another half month passed until she had heard the guards chatting about it during the night. Her, Bertigh, and Fenre were being passed up again and again and Hazel was starting to get nervous. She didn’t want to be dusted. Hell, she didn’t deserve to be dusted! Neither did her friends! They had committed no crimes against monsterkind!

She flipped the page of her book to see a nice depiction of an Echo Flower. Whatever the heck that was. The officials had already taken her picture, measurements, and physical details a few days ago so she was sure she’d get out of here and away from these other lunatics someday. But what was it that the officials were hesitating on? Suddenly, the padded door to the cell opened and a tall spiny monster walked in.

“Hello, again,” Hazel murmured softly without looking up from her book. “Anything new to share?” The doctor laughed in his usual sing-song way that Hazel had grown accustomed to during her time at the jail.

“Some news, yes. You might not like the end results but you’ll live. Come with me.” Hazel sat up to have a small red badge thrust at her by the doctor, his thin and slender fingers twisting the crystals on her cuffs so that a chain materialized. The badge was engraved with the words ‘Reserved’ and had three stars etched below it.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Follow me. I’ll tell you more on the way out of here.”

“I’m leaving?” Hazel jumped down from the small padded bed they had given her, shoved the badge into her pocket, and followed Dr.Kwirk out of the cell. She was immediately greeted with noise.

“Yes.” They turned the corner and began to walk down a long row of other open cells. Unlike her hall of padded cells that held the ‘tamer’ refugees, these barred cells held the wild ones. The fearful, untrusting, and violent-natured monsters that would be kept there for a much longer time than her. The newbies who still hadn’t gotten over the shock yet and were veterans like her but with less emotional control. “I got a few notices for you actually.”

“Notices?”

“Some monsters get out of here with job opportunities or are set up in communities to introduce them into monster life. You’re one of them but you passed slimly. A few businesses from all over the Underground have reached out to us to take some of our qualified released monsters and put them to work. A few were really interested in you. There are about five offers waiting for you downstairs. You’re not alone. There are about four of you that qualify to leave this place.”

The two walked around a few more hallways and corridors before they had reached the elevator. Hazel who had never been in one before, freaked out the first time, but after using it a few times to get from floor to floor, found them to be calming. She just avoided looking out the windows while they were moving. They traveled down two more floors before the elevator doors opened with a ding. Here they were: the baggage room. Hazel believed she’d never see this place again.

“Din! You’re here too?” Hazel brightened at the sight of Bertigh crossing his legs from a chair, his green eyes glinting. There were two other monsters in the seats next to Bertigh, their eyes directed at the floor with confusion and hope. Each were holding a colored card of sorts and had the same badge plastered to their jail suit as she did.

“I already took out your stuff for you. It’s over there,” Dr. Kwirk spoke up. Hazel walked over to a small plastic box to find the bag Toriel had given her and her old clothes. The smell of the surface from her sweater and shorts had completely disappeared. “Got everything? Good. Now come over here you so you can see the offers. I piled them up on the table for you.”

Hazel put on her backpack that she had taken from the extras and glanced at the slips of paper that sat across the glossy table. One of them was an offer for a job selling sandwiches in the Capital, of which Hazel passed over. The Capital was nice but the environment was not for her. Reminded her too much of a human city. The next was for a gate guard in Hotland that paid well but Hazel declined it because she’d be sitting in one spot the entire time. She’d get too restless. The next two were similar things like stocking shelves in a store which Hazel would think about. However, that would go in the trash when the last offer was put in front of her. A job delivering ordered packages in Snowdin.

“You’ve got some good offers, din!” Bertigh laughed from his chair. He then began to choke on a piece of his long fur that had gotten caught in his teeth. “We’re finally leaving! You should be happy!”

“I am happy. I just have a different way of showing it,” she retorted. “Where’s Fenre?”

Bertigh let his smile drop, his eyes not meeting his slight smile. “He couldn’t make it. Mischief. Bugged the guards so now the guards bug him. He will be here for some time yet.”

“Ah.”

“Do not be be sad, din! Fenre will be free soon. He is just an idiot. Brought more time on himself,” Bertigh continued. “Besides, you and I will be together! We are going to the same place! Look at your card again!” He laughed.

There was good pay and from what Dr. Kwirk had said while she was browsing, the government would provide her housing until she was deemed ready to do things on her own. Snowdin was a beautiful place or so she had observed. The first time she went there, she was reminded of home. So she snatched up her card, followed Dr. Kwirk down to the bottom floors with the others and stepped outside for the first time in weeks. The city air immediately stung her throat.

Outside, two guards were waiting to take them to Snowdin. They cast some sort of magic that linked each of the four prisoners to one another with chains, Hazel taking the front and Bertigh taking the back. She waved goodbye to Dr. Kwirk for the last time and when one of the guards pulled out a magic-link ring to lead the line, she didn’t protest. Slowly but surely, Hazel was leaving the capital forever.

The journey was long and horrible. They had been forced to walk over every inch of the Underground for hours now. The prisoner behind her had accepted a job on the far side of the capital which meant that the guards had walked the whole line there and then back to the lab before having to escort the third prisoner in the line to their destination which was the far side of Hotland, a hellish lava land. It didn’t help that the heart scorched Hazel underneath her thick pelt. She knew Bertigh felt it too by the way his long hair stuck to his face and how he panted between labored breaths. The guards led them around in their prison wear too so any onlooker who paid attention could gawk at the line of them, panting like dogs.

When the guards had finally set off from the lab to take them to Snowdin (they had to walk back to the lab every time), they made her and Bertigh put on a pair of blue badges next to their red ones and began to escort her through the little town of Snowdin. It was about evening when they got there. Then again, the use of artificial light was something that confused her regularly. It just wasn’t natural.

Snow swirled and tumbled in the air gently, the same scent of prey and chilled leaf mold washing over her. The guards had paused beside a quiet ice factory which was surrounded by small businesses. They had to meet up with two other armored guards, the other pair releasing Bertigh before pushing him in the direction of the factory.

“Prisoner Bertigh. You have accepted the job of hauling ice at Snowdin’s Ice Indsutry,” One of the guards spoke. Hazel said nothing but said everything with her eyes as she watched Bertigh be led by the guards up to the solid steel doors. They were greeted by three monsters. Bertigh took a moment to look over his shoulder and wink at her before strolling into the factory with a hearty booming laugh.

“Get a move on, prisoner.” Hazel was shoved herself as the remaining two guards started to head back to the Capital. Hazel felt a spark of irritation flash through her. Did they have to go back to the Capital every time one of the prisoners was let go from the line? The second guard though, put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

“To hell with the trip. Let’s just get this one down to the shop and then go.” They spat. The first guard seemed to argue but eventually grumbled his irritation at the prospect and began a slow walk to the shop. Hazel breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The frozen landscape of Snowdin certainly beat the hellish heat of Hotland any day.

Bakeries, restaurants, bookshops, everything. That was the city of Snowdin, or at least, what she saw. It was a very human city. That was what the architecture suggested. Beyond that was a sprawl of cozy-looking houses with steam wafting from the chimneys. She wasn’t sure how large the houses went on for. Back up on the surface, monsters just made houses on the sides of mountains or under the ground.

They had finally entered the main street and turned right, Hazel catching the familiar golden light of a pub that she had seen the first time her, Bala, and Minx had passed it. She wondered what they were up to nowadays. Now, the pub was full of customers. A few people were on the street and when they caught sight of Hazel and the guards, they hurriedly moved to the other side of the street. Hazel ignored that little exchange. She couldn’t blame them. She had been gawked at all day.

They had finally come to a stop in front of a large counter, a metal shied keeping Hazel from figuring out what was on the other side. In front of the shop were two rabbit-monsters, their eyes fixed on her. “My, oh my. What have we here?”   
One of the guards held up their ringed finger and twisted the crystal which made the chain connecting her to the guard disappear. Her wrists were still cuffed together and they were starting to itch like crazy.

“Your offer has been accepted. The candidate in question has been delivered for your inpsection,” The first guard stated. Why did they have to wear that armor all of the time anyway? Hazel nodded and moved her blue and red badges into the light. “That is all we came to do. She is under your supervision now.” With a small bow, the two guards slowly walked away, but not before the second guard stopped and finally released Hazel of her cuffs. Hazel turned back to the shopkeeper, rubbing her sore wrists gently.

“Hello.” Hazel said meekly. She hadn’t a clue what was going to happen to her now. 

“Well, aren’t you a cute thing? That’s right. I did send that invitation to you.” The bunny shopkeeper grinned, showing off a pair of shiny white front teeth. “Come on inside now. My name’s Violet. Go on in through the inn to your right. You can’t miss it. I’ll tell you what I’ll have you do when you get inside.” As you walked into the inn, you could hear the sound of the shop door widows closing. A bell above the door sounded as you came in, the other rabbit innkeeper giving you a furtive glance and pointing at a door behind a pair of stairs before going back to their phone call.

You pushed the back door open which led into a mailroom of sorts with different boxed crates and pieces of sticky paper all over the place. There were open boxes full of food, tools, and apparently plastic objects.

“There you are! Come over here so I get a good look at ya’.” Hazel stepped into the lighter part of the shop, trying not to fidget as the shorter shopkeeper milled around her, inspecting one thing, then the other. “Mhm. Yes. Alright, hang that bag of yours on the hooks over there. I want you to do some tests so I can see what you’re capable of.”

“Ok.” After hanging up her bag, the shopkeeper pointed towards a wooden crate and asked her to pick it up. Hazel did so easily and upon the orders of the shopkeeper, picked up another one, and another one, until she was holding four wooden crates in her arms.

“Plenty strong. That’s good. Go ahead and set them down now. That’s it. Now, it’s pretty cold out here in Snowdin. Your doctor back in the Capital said that wouldn’t be a problem. Is that right?”

“Yes. The cold doesn’t bother me.”

“Ok, sugar. They also mentioned you could do something real nifty. I think that’s what they said.” Hazel paused. Nifty?

“Was it something along the lines of changing the way I walk? Going from two paws to four?” She asked. Violet seemed to brighten again.

“Yes, that’s it. Do you mind showing me?”

“Of course.” All it took was a small stretch and Hazel was back to four.

“Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“Not really.” The shopkeeper then had her pick up a few more crates until she could carry at least seven on her back. Violet seemed really pleased with her.

“I’ve been meaning to find someone to help get these orders out. That trick of yours could really help out here and get the orders out much faster. Most folk don’t wanna bother themselves with ‘mundane’ work like this. I’ll have to send out a request to get you a harness or something. You don’t mind waiting, do you?” Hazel shook her head. “Ok. That should take at least a few days. Those fellas back at the factory don’t take long at all. There’s something else you can use during the meantime. Meanwhile, I’ll give you your first task.” Hazel shifted back to two legs and nervously followed Violet as she went back into the storeroom.

“I want you to take these three crates-” She patted a paw onto two labeled dark brown wooden crates. “-and deliver them to the monster camp a few blocks away. It’s not that far. It’s a different settlement of monsters down past the gorge; you’ll be living there, I’m sure. There are supplies in them and it would be mighty helpful to get these out of the way later instead of delivering them in the dark. Think you can handle it, sugar?”

“No problem.”

“Great. Here. You’ll need this.” Violet pulled out a large clear empty backpack of sorts with straps that went around Hazel’s chest and arms. “This’ll help you carry them. If you have any trouble, just come right on back now, ya’ hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Once Violet had left to the front of the shop, Hazel loaded the crates into the transparent sling and sealed the top shut. Before she had left the Inn, Violet had given her a map to help her get around. Oh. The monster camp really was quite far away but still within running distance. She adjusted the seal of the backpack to be on the top, switched back to four paws, and left the shop.

“Alright. Ten redwoods north and five pines west. Not too shabby. Shouldn’t be that exhausting of a run.” Hazel left the shop throwing up showers of snow from her paws as she curved around the large tree in the plaza and leaped onto a small forest trail. Her paws thrummed against the snow and dirt and her tail streamed behind her. It was nice to be able to run without being chased into it for once. The weight on her back was uncomfortable but not painful, the occasional crate corner digging into her shoulders. The trail led over tall hills and narrow gullies, sidetracking through two ravines before finally ending in a huge tree-cut clearing deep in the forest.

She didn’t think the monster camp would actually look like this. It was large, for sure, but the entire clearing was walled in by tall fences made of shiny metal so there was only one way in and one way out. Two guards patrolled the perimeter while two others stood near the entrance. The clearing certainly reminded her of home. There were small houses of sorts scattered here and there, built from chopped logs, clay, and stone. It matched the way that the surface monsters built their houses. They surface monsters had made their own little village here in Snowdin; soon, she’d be a part of it. But would she have to build her own house or would there be one waiting for her?

She slowly approached the guards who made a cross with their swords. “Halt! State your business, outsider!”  
“I’m here on behalf of the Snowdin Delivery Shop with… stuff.” Hazel took off her sling and opened the boxes to show the guards. It smelled physical to her so hopefully, these refugees were those that ate physical food like her. The guards thoroughly inspected them before nodding and taking one crate each. One of them, upon seeing her blue badge, whispered something to the other guard before setting their crates down.

“If that is all, then leave.” Hazel nodded and ran back to town with an empty sling, once again relishing the cold forest air in her fur before arriving back in town. It appeared that Violet was busy with some chatty customers. Hazel skirted inside of the Inn, took off her sling, and tried to find some sort of note telling her if there was anything left to do.

“Oh, you’re back! And from what I hear, a successful delivery.” Hazel raised an eyebrow at Violet, flinching when the shopkeeper gave her a happy clap on the back. How would she already know about it? “Since today was just practice, I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early at eight in the morning. These two guards are showing you home. Don’t forget your stuff now.”

“hey kid.” Hazel snapped her head around. She’d heard that voice before. There, just beside the counter outside, stood Sans and another guard, both motioning for her to quickly come outside. Hazel wished Violet goodnight, collected her bag and sidled out of the Inn where both of her supposed guards were waiting.

“Sans. ” Hazel cast a glance at him. “It’s been a long while. You’re a guard?” She was interrupted as the armored guard inspected her suit and upon finding the blue badge, began to lead the three of them into the woods.

“a sentry,” he corrected her. “my boss told the sentries that we’d have to keep a lookout for two newcomers today. my brother hasn’t stopped talking about the prospects of making new friends. he got to shadow the other newcomer.”

“He got to shadow Bertigh?”

Sans glanced at her. “bertigh? is he a friend of yours?”

“An old surface friend,” Hazel responded. She then paused. “Whoa, whoa, wait. You’ve been shadowing me? How?”

“much sneakier than you thought, right?”

“Very much so,” Hazel responded. “So where exactly are you two taking me?” The second guard decided to answer her question.

“Monsters like you are sent to the monster camps for observation. You live in the camps until we’ve either taken you off surveillance or if you cause a fight, you’re taken back to the center. Best watch yourself.”

“Ah, yes. That doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Hazel commented lowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> Bertigh is pronounced bear-tea.


	8. Ozrah Village

“Kmik kver. Ylir kan a’han tur na zvah. Eth linhd, weth din?” Hazel was broken out of her stupor by the sounds of her fellow fisher, hardly noticing the new shafts of sunlight beaming onto the water as she scooped another fish out of the river and placed it into a basket. She passed it to Azur, the elder lady complimenting her technique.

“Trahn,” Hazel replied evenly. She had already filled two baskets of fish. She winced at the strong smell but her mouth watered at the prospect of eating them. Those who had been lucky enough had managed to sneak past the guards and bring back an elk last night. At least there was prey to feast upon down in the depths. “Din. Do you think there’s enough here to feed the elders?” Hazel asked. Together, she and Azur had caught over three baskets of fish, big and small jumbled together. Azur observed their combined catches before nodding and picking up two of the baskets.

“Sal. This should do. Remember, we are not the only groups to go hunting,” Azur pointed out. “What we don’t catch, others will.” Azur was the apparent king of the group. She had been the first to welcome her to the monster camp, showing her where she would live and how she would go about her tasks. Azur was also well respected by the others as many seemed to smile when she walked past. 

Hazel’s house was the same as the others; built out of wood and stone with only one room to use. One room to sleep, eat, and seek shelter in. It wasn’t much but it was something. It came with a bed made from a pelt and had one door. Apparently, the only way to get more things for her house was to trade in her catch for coin. Other who had been here longer than her had tables, chairs, luxurious beds, and pantries. She wondered how much her paltry catch would get her if it was worth anything.

She hadn’t seen Bertigh yet, wondering if he was sent to another monster camp in the vicinity instead of here. At least the others were friendly. Azur had woken her up before dawn to help her catch fish for the old and young who couldn’t catch their own. She had led her to a large river that was beyond the metal fence. A place where the guards could not catch them. As she and Azur walked quietly back to the camp, Azur began to speak.

“These monsters who help us are kind but they do not know our ways. They hand us food, not knowing if we can eat or not. We are doomed to continue our traditions in silence but there is honor in persisting.”

“Mmh. At least we have the river. I do wish we had the forest but we live”

“Which king did you serve under?” Azur asked, her question gentle and in no way accusing. “I lived under the rule of King Raefnir. She was a good king. Fair and calm. The mountains were my homeland for many, many years.” Azur had a wistful look in her blind eyes, her long ears blowing in the wild breeze. Hazel could see how the mountains had once been her home in the tough, weathered pattern of her skin, her strong, sturdy legs, and her broad and heavy-lined face. 

“I served under the rule of King Tyravan. The northern forests were my homeland,” Hazel responded dully.

The two said nothing more as they entered the camp. To Hazel, it was more like a village. The houses stood in odd places, spread out over a portion of the large clearing but it was rather cozy. Her house was between a family of four and two elderly men who sat outside their house and played Fir-Monge. She didn’t miss the grateful looks in their eyes when she and Azur padded down the paths carrying their fish.

Past the houses were the trade markets. That was where others bartered their things. The market was awfully quiet for this time. Most of the monsters in the village were used to rising with the sun and perpetually woke early to the stillness of the forest. Hazel, who had grown up surrounded by the quiet trees, felt much less restless than her companion. Most of them came from the grasslands, the valleys, and the moors. She knew why that was too.

They had just managed to catch the second and third hunting groups who had caught a large net of rabbits along with fish. A feast was to be brought about tonight. As the adults began to ration the food, Hazel glanced out into her little village. From the inside, one could hardly tell that the perimeter was being guarded. The dense pines covered the unnatural material with dense shade and the only sound she heard was the Alpinian language spoken without fear from one street to another. She was handed two baskets of fish and rabbits and began to hand out the food to the elderly. She had done the same thing back in her old group on the surface, a pang of sadness filling her.

When she had reached the two old men from before, they stopped their game and smiled. “Pac kin. How are you today?” She smiled in return and handed them their rations, taking a small seat on the stone steps as the other residents from her surroundings came to take their rations as well.

“I’m fine. The hunting has certainly been well this morning. Let me know if you are still hungry. I could slip back over to the river and catch more fish for you. That is, should Azur allow it. The last thing I want to do is go back to the confinement center.” 

One of the elders scoffed and took off a chunk of his fish. “Bah! I am grateful to the youth for catching our prey but what I wouldn’t give for a quail or perhaps a boar. Where I am from, fish was prey seldom eaten.” Hazel nodded wistfully. The elder was probably from the grasslands. An entirely different group than her own.

When everyone had finished taking their rations, Hazel took the woven reed basket back to Azur’s house and traded it in for a ration of her own: two carps and a rabbit leg. Her belly growled as she walked back to her house, knowing well that such a measly portion wouldn’t ease the ache in her stomach. She had set the crate inside of her home before leaving. She had to get back to her job in Snowdin.

It was a different job they had given her this time. She was to deliver a few crates of industrial goods to the factory. She found herself dragging as she neared the factory, hoping to see a glimpse of Bertigh only to simply drop the crate off at the factory doors and leave. That was what the guards told her to do. Was she ever going to see Fenre again? Was there a purpose in coming down here? Was she meant to be down here, in a place where she didn’t feel she belonged?

She had finished her work early before the ‘sun’ was halfway across the sky. Monsters like her had to immediately go back to their camps. And so she did, escorted by a guard of course, who did nothing but complain about their lack of sleep because of them. She was almost relieved to be back in her little village where the guards couldn’t see her every moment of the day and the people were just like her.

“Din! There you are!” She was interrupted as a mass of long fur barreled into her. “I’ve been looking for you! You had me worried!” Bertigh. The mass of fur and dirt that was her old friend gave her a massive hug before leading her towards the shade of a massive pine.

“Bertigh,” She grinned. “Don a’zal! I’ve been looking for you as well.” She playfully cuffed him over his ears. Under the shade of the pine, they could talk peacefully. “How is your new job?” She piped up.

“Well! It’s dull work but it’s busy work. You know how much I like busy work?”

“A lot?” Hazel guessed. Bertigh gave her a toothy grin before ruffling the fur on top of her head. “Hey! Don’t do that, mak! You’re gonna give me fleas!”

“You’re the one with fleas, mak!” He ripped up blades of grass and playfully threw them at her, the two getting into a quick scrap. “Alright, alright, that’s enough! Ha ha ha! Let’s stop getting ourselves dirty with soot?”

“You started it.” She gave a great sigh, tuning out the talk of the other villages in her head. “You know, it stinks that we have to stay in this camp all day-”

“No we don’t!” Bertigh quipped, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s go for a walk in the woods!”

“Can we do that?” Hazel questioned, having to jog to keep pace with her taller friend. “Don’t the guards have to escort us everywhere?”

“No! Well, not if they don’t know that we’ve left,” Bertigh finished slyly. Hazel grimaced before shooting past her friend. Breaking the rules wasn’t really her thing but so long as they didn’t get caught, they would have no repercussions.

“Then we’ll have to be real quiet,” She purred. “Come on. I want to see how far this forest goes.”

“Right behind you!”

 

“Hey, are we going the right way?”

“I have no idea, din. We’re lost.”

Hazel pulled herself over a hill of boulders, watching as Bertigh vaulted up the slope. His hooves were much more used to climbing rocks than her paws were. They had been out in the woods for hours, having filled themselves up on river fish and any berries they had found. The forest seemed to stretch on for days, the two finding the occasional grassy clearing to kick up dust in. “Hold on. I’ll climb a tree and see if I can spot anything.” 

Hazel bunched her legs underneath her and leaped into the branches of a nearby pine, letting her paws carrying her up to the very top. “Wow. I can’t even see the village from here!”

“Death it is then!” Bertigh yelled up from his rest against the tree’s trunk.

“Yeah, you wish.” She could only see the tops of the pines, spotting a group of steam columns from many miles across the cavern. “I think I found the main town! Wow, that’s far!” She slid back down the tree and paused, retracing her scent trail back to a hedge a few paces away from the treeline. She was interrupted as something wet and slimy thumped against the back of her head.

“And I think I found some fresh mud!” She dodged as Bertigh flung another wad of mud at her, scooping up a pawful and throwing it at his face. She missed. “Hah! You call that a throw!” He had pulled up another wad of mud and flung it at her, the wad spraying her shoulders with the slimy stuff.

“Cheap shot!” she retorted, this time throwing the mud at Bertigh’s chest. It connected and the front of his new shirt was covered in mud. “Who’s a bad aim now?”

Bertigh dipped under the cover of a hedge, throwing pebbles at various places to try and distract her. Hazel ducked and bowled her friend over, rolling him over and over until they bounced out into a clearing. He managed to throw her off but shoved a wad of mud down her shirt, laughing as her paws skidding in the mud trying to chase him. 

“You’re going to pay for that, mak! I just got this shirt!”

“You can get another one-” Hazel paused as Bertigh’s voice suddenly vanished. The mud that he had hit her with had blocked one of her eyes. She rubbed at them sorely, somewhat irritated before Bertigh’s voice had reappeared. “Come on. Let’s go back to the village, din.”

“What? Why? I-” She opened her eyes, her fur bristling as two figures stood opposed to her and Bertigh. She didn’t recognize them but she did recognize the predatory grin on one of them.

“You two are not supposed to be out of your camp.” The taller one had a vicious grin, their sole eye gleaming with cruel triumph. They grabbed Bertigh roughly by his shoulder and loomed over him, spinning him around to face her. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a rebel.”

The second guard, taller but lankier than the first and armored, began to speak. “Undyne, we don’t need to… we can just…” Hazel slowly got to her feet, her ears drawn flat against her skull.

“They broke the rules, guardsman. You know what happens to the monsters who break the rules, right?” She growled. Hazel knew. They would be imprisoned for their insubordination. Back to the confinement center. Undyne shoved Bertigh out of the way roughly before coming to tower over Hazel. She wouldn’t give her the same fearful look, instead squaring her shoulders back and staring right back into Undyne’s golden glare. “Ooh. Look at this one! Are you proud that you broke the rules? You’re going right back to confinement-”

“I brought her here!” Bertigh spoke up, moving to put himself in between Hazel and Undyne. “The fault is mine.”

Undyne raised an eyebrow, materializing a spear out of nowhere. Before she could use it however, the second guard put a hand on Hazel’s shoulder and gently pulled her away. “They aren’t causing any disturbances out here in the woods,” the guard argued. She was surprised. A guard that didn’t care for their shenanigans? “Let’s just escort them back to the camp. It’s not like there haven’t been monsters to leave the enclosure before.”

Hazel was mystified as was Bertigh as he came to stand beside her to watch the two guards quarrel. And here, she had once respected the guards. Now she couldn’t tell if they were allegianced to one another or not.

“Rules are rules, guardsman. You were sworn to follow them.” Undyne brandished her spear, not as a weapon but as an intimidation act.

“But some rules are less necessary than others. They were simply… playing. I saw no magic or weapons.” 

Bertigh shot her an uncomfortable look. “Paaz mak dra?” he whispered. Hazel flinched, narrowing her eyes at her friend. “They look busy arguing amongst themselves. We could slip away while they aren’t paying attention.”

“Ik! A’l din ruk?” Hazel whispered back furiously. “They know these woods. We don’t. We’re already in trouble. Just keep quiet.” The two guards argued back and forth before Undyne, apparently the captain, cursed under her breath and stormed off. They were left with the second guard who turned back to them.

“Just… go home. Don’t get yourselves caught outside of the village without supervision again or I won’t be able to help you.” Hazel was shocked. Was that how things were run down here? But Bertigh, seeming to take that as advice to run back home, yanked Hazel off by the scruff of her neck and back into the treeline with a false smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes: 
> 
> 1.Kmik kver. Ylir kan a’han tur na zvah. Eth linhd, weth din?/ Dawn breaks. The fishing should be pleasant in these parts. Pass the basket, will you?
> 
> 2\. Trahn/ Thanks
> 
> 3\. Fir-Monge: a game similar to scrabble by scratching the words in the dirt.
> 
> 4\. Kin/ Young-one
> 
> 5\. Don a’zal/ Dickhead
> 
> 6\. Mak/ Jerk
> 
> 7\. Pazz mak dra?/ Should we leave?
> 
> 8\. Ik! A’l din ruk?/ No! Are you crazy?


	9. The Green Badge

Hazel perched at the top of a smooth boulder, her paw hovering over the broken edge of the ice waiting for her food to swim by. The chill of Snowdin reached deep into her morning-ragged pelt and chilled her deeper than she’d admit but she would remain still and silent. Something silver sparkled under the deep blue water. Hazel shot her paw into the river and scooped out a large trout, catching it in her teeth. She spat it out onto the river bank and stilled herself as she waited for the next one to arrive. She had been at this for more than an hour.

Having been woken up at five in the morning with no food in the cabin, Hazel distracted herself with supplying her pantry herself by doing the only thing she could do at the time: fishing. She couldn’t hunt warm game at the moment. Not when she had no traps or weapons at hand. She had tried to sniff out a few yesterday night but to no avail.

“That makes eight.” Hazel spat out a smaller trout onto the river bank and grinned. She’d have no problem feeding herself down here unlike those who were to depend upon sickening magic food. She put the eighth fish into a small reed basket she had bartered for three days ago and turned to face the water once more. She would have to work out ways of finding salt for the meat later. Her bigger focus was catching enough to see her through at least a week. Until she could buy herself something to hold ice.

She had found this clearing by dumb luck, it being the most guarded river clearing yet. The iced river cut through a ravine sloped with slick boulders with a sandy bank. It was protected by a small rocky overhand keeping this particular spot free of snow. Deep in the woods, life thrummed all around her with bird calls, fluttering leaves, and wind through the trees. She had managed to find a spot where the guards would seldom look. It was within the territory of the village but just barely on the border. Hazel took a deep breath and widened the hole in the river a bit. Just in case something big happened to swim her way.

Loud crunching footsteps shook Hazel from her trance and she swiveled an ear to listen better. The footsteps were deep and far away but definitely heading in her direction from the way the sound grew more clearer and more precise. She raised her muzzle and scented the cold air. The pungent scent of tomatoes and bone wafted in the air. Sans, she thought. Hazel couldn’t stop the exasperated look that came over her. How many times would he just happen to show up? She had glimpsed him multiple times in the past week since she had received her job. She couldn’t tell if he was still shadowing her or not.

Hazel turned back to her fishing hole and raised a paw again. Something large was coming. She could see it in the way the water rippled and the current slowed. She unsheathed her claws, ready to fish it out. Something pale suddenly slipped underneath the ice and within a second, Hazel had scooped it into the air. It arched above her and Hazel rose up on her hind legs and snatched it up swiftly, spitting it out into the basket.

“A salmon? That’s the biggest catch I’ve had all morning!” She purred, examining its pale underbelly. She would feast tonight.

“heya.” Came Sans’s low-pitched drawl.

“Sans. I just happened to hear and smell you before you arrived. Your footsteps are easy to hear.” Hazel drawled sarcastically. “I take it you have a penchant for just happening to show up in the strangest places, huh?” Sans, in his usual lazy getup, walked into Hazel’s line of sight. The guy looked as though he had slept roughly, his under eye sockets darker than usual and his eyes dim. He shrugged and put his gloved hands back into his pockets.

“yup.” He stood back and watched as Hazel scooped out one fish, then a second, and then a third. She piled all of the fish together and then held the basket over her shoulder. “My boss sent me to find you.”

“May I ask why? It’s seven in the morning. I haven’t done anything wrong.” Hazel enunciated. She was comfortable enough with Sans’ presence. He wasn’t threatening in the slightest and never bothered with reinforcing the rules with anybody. Even now, he didn’t seem particularly concerned for the way she was lingering around the border.

“our boss is a morning person.”

“Ah. I see.” She stood up and quickly examined the clearing she was in. She’d make a mental note to come back later and see if anything else was lurking beneath the ice. “Wait, why was she looking for me in the first place?”

“you’re on watch,” Sans shrugged. “it’s sort of our job to keep an eye on you and the others, kid.” The two slowly entered the shadows of the forest heading the same way that Hazel had walked when she left her house that morning. The pine trees were tall and imposing, casting the forest floor into inescapable darkness. It only made the biting winds colder.

“I’ll bite and say it’s because of my LV, right?” Hazel joked. “That’s the only excuse I can think of.”

“yup.” Sans replied. “undyne wanted us to keep an eye on ya’. aren’t you supposed to be working?” He asked.

“No. Violet mentioned that I work during the afternoon now so I don’t go in for some time yet. Plenty of time to dick around the woods though.” Hazel took the lead, seamlessly scenting the trail she had taken to get here. She tightened her hold on her basket, only then noticing Sans’s lingering stare at the contents. “What? Don’t like fish?”

Sans dragged his eyes away and raised a bone brow. “more of a beef fan, actually. where’d you learn how to fish like that?” He asked. 

“So you were watching me? My mom taught me how when I was a kid. First thing I knew how to do, actually. It’s long and boring work but the rewards are pretty great.” Hazel rambled. Sans’s usual smile brightened a bit. As the two followed the track, Hazel scored every other tree trunk with her claws. “Marking the trail. Don’t ask.”

“pine. i’ll ask you something else then.” Hazel sighed and shook her head slowly with a small smile. “what else did your mom teach you how to do?”

“Hmm.” Hazel put a paw to her chin. “Well, the first thing I had to learn was how to hunt for myself. She taught me how to hunt small things like rabbits, mice, and birds. Small prey but it works in case of starvation. The rabbits were always tricky though. Fishing was the first skill I mastered. You should’ve seen the fish up on the surface like pikes and bass. Giant things. Could feed a family of ten!” Sans kept quiet, a sign that Hazel should continue. “After hunting, came other needs like how to find water, star navigation, finding shelter, herbs and poisons-”

“poisons?” Sans interrupted. “why poisons?”

“Dead useful for tricking both man and beast. We’d use poisons to kill deadly adders in our territory or to kill off poisoned prey. Mostly things like poisonous berries. Kept them around for safety reasons so no, I won’t poison you.” Hazel smirked. “Besides, I haven’t found any poisonous herbs down here.”

“besides,” Sans mocked.

At long last, Hazel had made out the wooden structures of her village. Sans tagged along behind her as she skimmed through the alleys, saying quick hellos to the people whom she knew before eventually finding her house. With a small push, the weak wooden door creaked open. 

“Welcome to my cabin in the woods. Totally not hiding anything in the shadows. No need to nose around.” Hazel announced sarcastically. “It’s not much but it’s warmer than outside, I’ll tell you that much.”

The inside of the cabin was very small to say the least. She had managed to set up a few things in the past week thanks to how much food her hunting group was bringing in. A small bathroom was right behind the ‘kitchen’ making the shape of the cabin a nice rectangle. Besides the door was the frame for a cobblestone fireplace which she was supposed to start work on two days later. A very small and literally useless pelt bed that was included with the house lay forgotten in the corner. The kitchen was a square of space consisting of wooden crates, barrels, and clustered shelves too small to walk into that she had built herself.

“nice place.”

“I know, right? Ten out of ten, would recommend to a friend.” Hazel took off her bag of fish and stored it on top of one of the crates. Good thing she had already prepared a salted barrel to store the fish in. “Hold you- oh, that’s right. You don’t have a nose. Oh well.” Hazel took off the covering of the salted barrel, which already held a few fish. She dumped in the rest and tossed in a few handfuls of salt before securing the lid again.

“you live on that?”

“Yeah. I’ll just snack on one later when you’re not around to see it. It’s not like I can eat magic food anyway.” 

“why not?” Sans had already claimed the bed for his own. Hazel laughed internally at his expression of confused wonder and worry. He seemed to gawk at the emptiness of the place. Hazel stretched and took up her position leaning against one of the walls of the cabin. 

“We had no magic food up on the surface after the Great War and all, so we had to learn how to handle physical food. Us surface monsters sort of developed to be able to tolerate it. Thus, most surface monsters have physiology resembling humans but better because we don’t have to filter our water or cook our food.” Hazel glanced at the barrel of salted fish again. “Some people prefer cooking it for the taste, though.”

Sans had taken another look around before getting up. “i think undyne is waiting for us. we should go and find her.” It was then Hazel’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“You’re just looking for an excuse to leave cabin town.” She laughed. “Don’t worry. I get it. Me and my cabin are too rustic for your tastes anyway. Too open-spaced. Fine-”

“there is literally nothing in here, kid. tori would go crazy if she saw this place.” Hazel felt a smile tug on her lips when she remembered the elderly goat monster. How was Toriel doing? She’d make a note to ask later.

“Well, she hasn’t. Alright. I suppose I shouldn’t keep Undyne waiting. Let’s go.” The two exited the house and Sans, taking the lead this time, pointed out a trail in the woods and the two walked along it. They walked in moderate silence until they reached the main street of Snowdin where Undyne stood tapping her boots near the giant pine tree in the plaza.

Out of her guard gear, Undyne was just as scary and mean-looking as before. Her eye was narrowed in irritation and she crossed her arms under her multiple layers of clothes. Was the cold weather too much for her? When Sans and her had finally arrived, she stopped her incessant tapping and glared at Hazel; Hazel glared right back. She really didn’t like Undyne. Hopefully, this meeting of sorts would close soon.

“sup undyne.”

“Can it Sans. Let’s hurry up and get this done so I can go back to Waterfall.” Hazel only then noticed that the clearing had been empty except for other monsters with the same badges she had. They had all been accompanied with a guard and she felt a twinge of embarrassment when the had realized that she had been the last to arrive. She spotted Bertigh from the other end of the line who waved at her before messing around with the guy next to him.

“Alright. Now that we’re all here, we can begin. So far, all of you within this group have exceeded the need for surveillance. Us guards don’t need to waste our time to make sure you don’t get into trouble.” She glared particularly in Hazel’s direction before making a few quieted hand motions, three of the guards starting to hand out green badges. “I’ll make myself clear; these green badges that are being given to you right now allow you to leave your camp without a guard. Don’t lose it. You won’t get another one if you do. However, you still have a curfew! You may not be seen outside of camps from nine at night to seven in the morning. Anybody that is caught abusing this privilege will be forcefully taken back to the Capital. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes ma’am,” the opposing monsters thundered. Undyne continued, Hazel cocking her head as a guard had saddle up to her, handing her a leather sash with the green badge- no, the green patch already sewn in. The guard quickly took her red and blue badges from her and somehow stitched them into the sash as well.

“You will be required to keep all of your badges with you at all times. Don’t try to be coy. Each green badge has the name of its’ owner already sewn in. If you are caught with another monster’s badge, you will be jailed. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“The green badge will also allow you to travel to different parts of the Underground. You will be allowed to go anywhere you please and use your magic outside of the camps, but adhere to the rules or go to jail. Now, since all of you have your badges now, one of the guards will be showing you around Snowdin. You’re on your own for the other holds of the Underground.”

 

After nearly three hours of walking, Sans had guided Hazel and her group back onto the main street. Her paws didn’t hurt but her ears certainly did. It seemed as though everybody else was more concerned with talking about their badges and newfound abilities than actually paying attention to the layout of Snowdin. Hazel had taken to being at the front of the group, occasionally translating for Sans who couldn’t understand Alpinian.

“over here’s the library.”

“The library?” Hazel asked. She had been very confused when Sans started using human terms to describe the city. Words like census, county, telephone box, bank, hospital, and of course, restaurant. She had only heard them in passing in her days as a surface dweller but never quite understood what they meant. After three hours of the words being drilled into her, she certainly understood now.

“the place has lots of books if you fancy reading.” Hazel stopped and looked at the place deemed ‘the library’. It was a semi sized brick building with what looked to be two floors. The windows let Hazel see the multiple shelves of books within. Places like libraries existed too but the legion had called them bind vaults.

“Ooh. Maybe I’ll go and check it out later.”

“we’re supposed to go in anyway. the librarian allowed it.” Sans glanced back to make sure that the group was still following and herded them into the building. Already, Hazel could identify what made the place so much like her bind vaults. It smelled of dry leather and dusty paper within, the air warm and inviting. “you’ll need to be quiet. librarians don’t like noise.”

“Weird,” Hazel commented, walking over to a shelf of colorful books. “Our ‘libraries’ didn’t care if we made noise.” Sans began to look at colorful illustrated books while Hazel dwelled in the darker aisles. She perused the bigger, heavier books that were rarely touched. The ones with old maps, detailed illustrations, and cramped writing.

“hey kid,” Sans whispered as he located her around a corner. “wanna hear a joke?” Hazel scoffed and nodded, trying not to listen as she flipped through a paperback that she was looking at.

“Sure. Enthrall me.”

“knock knock.”

“Who there’s,” she grumbled.

“flap.”

“Flap who-”

“Shh!” Hazel jumped as the librarian peered around the corner, her eyes disproving as she turned on her heel and disappeared.

“Let’s just stop talking so I don’t get into trouble.”

After a few minutes of looking at books, Sans had led the group out of the library and headed east, Hazel a few paces behind. They had just passed a group of houses when it happened. The warm air from inside one of the houses wafted out and as it washed over her, a scent hit her too. A scent that had instilled hatred and mistrust in her since she was a kid. 

Her fur bristled to twice its size and her claws unsheathed and dug into the ground. Her ears drew back and she instinctively began to growl. What was that scent doing here? Why was it here? She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and fought the urge to locate the source. Sans seemed to jump as the sound of growling grew louder. It wasn’t just her though. Multiple monsters had started to tense up, their teeth bared and their eyes flashing. Hazel backed away from the houses as did a handful of the others. 

“whoa kid. what’s got you in a fur-enzy?” Sans joked. But Hazel wasn’t smiling. 

“I smell a human!” She snarled. Putting more distance between herself and the house. A few other monsters began to argue and before long a small skirmish broke out. It was right in the middle of the group, meaning that Sans couldn’t even get through to figure out what the hell was going on. Some of the others had already taken the liberty of breaking the squabbling monsters apart and Hazel focused back on the path. Sans never said what the source of the scent was and Hazel was too on edge to ask about it more.

 

Hazel stared dully at the fire in the clay grate, the dancing flames reflecting in her eyes as she skinned one of her trouts and devoured it. Her paws were still shaking as they always did after an encounter with a human. She chewed slowly, wrinkling her nose at the taste of salt. She had added more than she was supposed to but she wasn’t going to let it go to waste. She took the scraps and tossed them into the fire watching the flesh sizzle and crack. It would only fuel the flames.

Violet had assigned her another delivery to the refugee camp while asking her to deliver for five customers in Downtown Snowdin earlier. She had needed a map and as of now, had pinned the map to the wall with the help of a few fish rib bones. Now that the light had faded and the forest was silent, she could think, eat, and unwind before she would sleep. Too bad she hadn't found any deer yet. She could really do with a skin for a blanket. Perhaps she could barter for one at the market tomorrow.

Hazel rolled the barrel back into its space within the claustrophobic kitchen and silently plopped herself down in front of the fire, still watching the fire dance and twirl. Her magic hadn’t come back to full power yet. That worried her more than she’d let anybody know. She had only managed to keep a magical fire going in the frames of the unfinished fireplace.

There was a small knock outside of her door. Hazel chose not to answer but to keep still in front of the fire, letting it warm her after a long day of being out in the cold. She knew who it would be on the other side. The thin wooden door allowed her to smell the breeze at any time and any day.

At the thought of the incident, she turned over, scowling. A human in the Underground? After all these years of constantly being on the crossroads of death and victory, she had assumed the Underground would be free of humans. A paradise where she wouldn’t need to fear for her safety every minute of the day. She snarled as the knock sounded again and she stretched her claws. Monsters sheltering humans? Stupid, she thought. How would that even come to be?

It was then that the door to her cabin suddenly swung open. Hazel was already on her paws, fur bristled, ready to defend herself but-

“Oh, it’s you,” Hazel growled as Sans walked into the place. She flopped back down onto the floor making sure not to face him. “Why are you here? I know the guards can check houses at any time but why solicit mine?”

“giving me the cold shoulder pal? cold-blooded.” 

“Your jokes don’t amuse me as of the moment.” Hazel began to clean the scraps of salt and trout blood from her fur, eyeing Sans with disdain as he purposefully walked into her line of view and sat down on the floor in front of her. “I should ask you how you got into my hut in the first place is what I should be doing. I put a rock behind the door.”

“magic,” Sans responded holding up a glowing blue hand. “so…” Sans began, ending with a tight smile. “seen any humans lately?”

“Why would I see any?” Hazel snorted. “This is the Underground where humans aren’t supposed to be last time I checked. I guess Hectarian belief perpetuates even in underground monster life. What was I thinking?” She muttered crossly.

“hectarian?” 

“Human-loving.” Hazel forced out. “I forget that you know next to nothing about surface culture and politics.”

“frisk is just a kid,” Sans began, his smile disappearing. “wouldn’t hurt anybody. fell down here ages ago and won’t leave. the kid made friends with everybody too.” Hazel sighed and dug her claws into the wooden floors out of frustration. “what was with that-”

“Scene from earlier?” Hazel cut in. “So the human’s name is Frisk? You’re lucky the refugees are kept in camps because more than half of them would kill that kid if they saw them. Down here of all places.” Hazel muttered. “Prok a'mal prok. Ik a'trehn yal, nahn, ot linhd.”

“why?”

“Why? Why?” Hazel raised her head in disbelief. “It may be easy for you to shelter them but us surface monsters have spent our entire lives having to run, hide, and protect ourselves from humans constantly.” Hazel rasped, her voice keeping a low tone. “It’s as if you’ve forgotten that humans are the ones that locked you down here. They locked all of you down here and then proceeded to hunt the rest of us down. They have hunted us nearly to exhaustion. We lived in constant fear of them. And now all of us, every last refugee from child to adult, is ingrained with a subconscious fear and hatred of humans. There are reasons for the way we act.”

Hazel was shaking by the time she finished her rant. Her eyes were shiny and glazed with that aforementioned fear from before, her eyes darting across the room. Her fur crept upwards along her spine and her claws flexed in their sheaths. “We lost our homes. Our families. Our lives to humans,” Hazel continued, her voice now shaking. “All of us have lost something.T'ruk narh praaz im fahr valir gozikh im mut sher.”

The room was filled with silence, interrupted by the small crackle of the fireplace. Hazel stood from her place on the floor. She couldn’t stop shaking and her skin boiled beneath her fur. She didn’t want to be in this hut anymore. She needed to cool down. As she grabbed her sash with her badges and opened the door, Sans spoke up one last time.

“they’re just a kid. they wouldn’t hurt anybody.” Hazel turned around and faced him, the cold winds blowing in and extinguishing the flames.

“You haven’t seen the terrors of humans like we have. Lok dahrvenir... I’ve said too much. Don’t listen to us. We’re just been hunted for too long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> 1\. Prok a'mal prok. Ik a'trehn yal, nahn, ot linhd./ Monsters will be monsters. Doesn't matter when, where, or why.
> 
> 2\. T'ruk narh praaz im fahr valir gozikh im mut sher./ Ask a mouse why he fears the fox stalking him from the shadows.
> 
> 3\. Lok dahrvenir./ Such atrocities.


	10. Strange Papers

The dark pine branches that grew above her hollow were thick yet brittle, and the heavy snowfall from above had snuffed out her flowery scent. A spare branch had suddenly snapped from the weight of its load, the contents crashing to the dark forest floor below. 

Hazel was currently positioned in the thick canopies of the pine trees, her body tightly nestled into a sticky hollow. Her wide eyes locked onto the huge stone doors to the catacombs, the door cracked a bit to allow some air in. She could go in there... It wasn’t as though anybody was following her or anything.

Beautiful white snow danced around the tops of the pine trees, her breath coming out in warm clouds of steam. It was achingly similar to her home on the surface, the only difference being that snow never fell in Ebott. There was the rare scent of prey, but it was rabbits and mice instead of deer and the oily scent of fish. There was that and the fact that the only thing that would top it off would be a burned house on a high hill. Hazel’s thick fur coat fluffed out which left her naturally warmer than most folk so the cold only bothered her just a little bit. She could stay out here for hours and feel cold during the last few minutes exactly. 

Suddenly, the stone doors burst open, a heavy gust of tepid air flowing out below as she watched on with slight curiosity. Two figures pushed out from the ruins, being subdued by the blasting winds.

“Come now, Frisk. Stay close to me. The wind is rather strong today, my child.” She slowly squeezed farther into the hollow, not daring to make a sound as she watched on. Her claws dug feverishly into the trunk and her eyes locked onto the human who followed giddily behind Toriel. This was not the surface. Humans don’t belong here, she thought as she slipped down the trunk of the pine in pursuit

It certainly wasn’t the best hobby stalking the boundaries of Snowdin and the ruins in order to get a glimpse of the supposed human. What the other surface monsters wouldn’t do to flay them as well! Hazel bit back a growl forming in her throat, keeping an eye on the two as she rolled in the snow to blend in better with her surroundings. It would certainly get her in trouble doing something like this, with or without the safety of her sash. 

“I do wish there was a… safer way to get to Snowdin. Or at the very least, I wish the doctor would’ve called us in at a closer destination.” Hazel eavesdropped on the two. What in the world were they talking about? She didn’t know much about the two of them to begin with. Toriel had taken her in and healed her back wound when she had first fallen down into the Underground; a great feat of earning trust and respect from Hazel in the least. It was Frisk she didn’t trust. No, that wasn’t quite right. That was too soft of a wording. 

The kid looked to be young, almost in the adolescent years. They were wearing some type of protective robe, the hood pulled over their head so much that Hazel had a hard time discerning whether the figure hidden by the cowl was actually a human. But there was no mistaking that unpleasant odor that fluttered in their wake and soured Hazel’s nostrils. That and Sans had made the stupid mistake of blurting out the kid’s name. Something was… off about the human. Hazel couldn’t place her claw on it but she’d make a note to add more following distance from the kid.

She tried her best to make as little sound as possible as she skimmed over the deep snow, the slush sinking into her fur as she dropped their scent and waited. Since her new badge allowed her to travel wherever the hell she pleased in the Underground, she decided she’d use it. The dense undergrowth was completely sheltered by the snow, her paws catching in a thorn bush as she managed to leave the radius of the two. She had to have waited for almost ten minutes, their silhouettes having faded into the blizzard ages ago. She could breathe freely now.

As Hazel made her way through the icy forest, she came across a long path leading up the hill. Did she just go in a circle? She turned her head to check either way of the path, her ears pricked for any signs of life. Apart from a lone squeak in a holly bush a few paces away, nothing else was stirring. Not even the snow. She drew herself onto the barren path and began to follow it uphill, her pelt blending in with the pines as she walked closer towards the edges. 

Hazel continued until she found a strange constructed building. It looked like a station of some sort, the front opened to allow for anybody to easily crawl in. Just what the heck was this thing? She could remember some humans constructing these in the forest some odd years ago. Like a gate for other humans to be let through? But why were these here?

Despite her misgivings about slowing down, she prowled slowly towards the opening until she could clearly see into it. Heavy piles of snow gathered on the tin roof, a weirdly shaped object standing forgotten across from it. She could smell the faint scent of tomatoes and meat wafting from the inside of the hut, but there was no food to be seen. Not that she would eat it or anything. Hazel turned around, quietly flexing her claws. It was dead quiet out here. Too quiet. But it was safe. For now, at least.

There were small snow lumps in the corner that she promptly ignored, ruffling the piles as she passed. They were kind of shaped like dogs though. Those small ones that humans constantly let off of their leashes… What were they called..? She looked around the entire structure, not finding even a hint as to what it was. She did find a small joke book about puns, which she left lying on the counter. Alright. That was enough looking.

Turning around, Hazel spotted another path to her left, leading further into the dark forest that she had come to accept as her new home of sorts. She gradually left the structure and followed the frosty path, passing a clearing with a small wooden box and various exits to her north and east. She kept going forward, ignoring the shiny box that was now collecting snow on its lid. 

Hazel came to another hut of sorts, not much farther from the other. It looked as if it had been sloppily done, its handiwork clumsy and poorly built. The roof had already caved in from the pressure of the slushy ice, and a thick pile of snow had begun to collect on the inside. The same scent of tomatoes wafted out but it smelled ashy and burnt. 

It was much darker than the other on the inside, and a long metal sign hung on the front of the desk. She slowly approached the barren counter of the hut, keeping her ears up as she peered through the opening. There were various broken plates and bowls strewn about with a few bare bones lying against the side. 

They were bleached to a pure white, the edges rounded. That’s how all of them were. What a disgusting hobby. Why would anybody keep bones out here? She stilled. That meant she was surely in trouble. She couldn’t even smell a trace of life on them. How long had the bones been standing there for?

“heya kiddo.”

Hazel whipped around with a throaty snarl and flattened herself against the wooden desk of the hut, her eyes gleaming with fear and her fur bristling angrily. Her muzzle was raised, teeth flashing and eyes narrowed in fear and suspicion. Oh. It was just… Sans. Shit. 

Her entire body had already frozen up, not daring to move in any way. She already knew that her ears were flattened against her neck in false alarm, that she was slightly growling, and that her claws were now mangling the wooden counter behind her. After an awkward pause, Hazel straightened up and clasped her paws nervously in front of her.

“Could you not do that?” Hazel grumbled. “You’re going to give me a heart attack if you keep popping up behind me like that.” How the stealthy little shit found her was beyond her train of thought as that train went hurtling off the tracks long ago. But it was still dangerous to be around him, that she knew for sure. He had the same strange aura as Frisk though. “What do you want?”

“nothin much. what are you doin’ out here, kid? ” Her eyes narrowed in surprise and then thoughtfulness. That’s right. Sans had… mellowed out in his treatment of her since the incident. She figured out ways to keep others from barging into her home. It seemed as though she could find peace nowhere these days. Hazel pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I’m taking a walk. What? I can’t take a walk without being suspicious?” Hazel couldn’t help herself from biting off other people’s heads. Even with her green badge, most monsters still gave her a hard time about ‘walking around’. She had only recently discovered that the red badge Dr. Kwirk had given her ages ago designated that a monster was very… powerful. High in LV. It made her and Bertigh stick out like a patch of grass during winter. Today, she had chosen to let him rest out of sight.

“calm down buddy. take it easy. didn’t mean to get under your fur about it.” Hazel groaned and shook her head. It was then that she noticed the worried look on Sans’ face. His eyes seemed to dart around and she could see his phalanges twitch under the thick cloth of his pockets. He didn’t seem too focused on her at the moment. No. She followed his erratic glances to the other station.

“Something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.” She padded past him towards the neater station, inspecting it lazily. Sans had crept around the back to enter it. He peered under the counter and when apparently he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he began to sweat. How could skeletons do that? “What’s wrong?”

“lost some papers.”

“Papers, huh? No doubt, the blizzard probably snatched them right from under the desk and blew them god knows where. That sucks.” Even as Hazel spoke, Sans kept searching for his supposed documents. The ever-present grin on his face went from ironic to strained in a heartbeat. 

He made as if to shrug his shoulders, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his jacket but missing one. She didn’t like Sans particularly but if the documents he was looking for were important enough to mess up his laid-back demeanor, they had to be some kind of important. 

“Do you need some help finding them?” Hazel asked gently. Sans seemed to snap his gaze back to her. “I could try to sniff them out.”

“sniff them out?” 

“Don’t look at me like that. Hold on.” Hazel bowed her head so that she could look behind the counter, the dull scent of wood shavings and ketchup making her lips curl. It would certainly be an easy scent to track. “Let me see if I can find a trail in this blizzard.” She padded around the perimeter of the station, trying to check the breeze for a matching scent. Sans had simply ignored her, going back to his frantic inspecting.

Ah. She had found it! The breeze had blown the papers north. She took off into the woods at a trot, noticing that the heavy winds had scattered the papers pretty much wherever. Great. This would be a fun errand to complete, she thought.

 

The task had taken a little over three hours to do. There were seven pages that she had managed to track down. The first three had gotten stuck within the needles of some pine trees. The fourth had gotten caught under a fallen log. The fifth was stuck to the surface of an ice lake. The sixth page was in a much weirder location. She had been forced to snatch the paper out of a dog’s mouth and dry off the saliva. The last and final page had been wedged between a rock shelf and a thistle bush within the gorge.

She now held them in her paws. She really shouldn’t have read those papers but following Sans’ scent was making her so tired and they were right in front of her. She proposed that they were probably orders of some sort. She decided to take a break up against a fallen log where the snow and wind wouldn’t reach her, conjure a warm fire, and read the papers. She just wouldn’t tell Sans is all.

“Wow,” she breathed, her eyes skimming the first page with mild suspicion. Of course, Sans or whoever the author was had written the script in monster-tongue. Hazel really ought to give it a name. She’d call it Flatian. Surface-tongue. The first page was covered in numerous drawings of three-dimensional objects. There was messy and compact writing, the first page talking about breaks in time. There were multiple codes scribbled in the margins so that not a single inch of the page was bare. Why the hell would Sans have these? Perhaps… perhaps she should keep these pages a bit longer. Study them. After all, Sans probably thought that she wouldn’t be able to track them down. She stuffed them into her inventory and headed out.

She made her way south towards the village. She’d read the pages in the safety of her own house. There was just the slight inconvenience of running into other monsters along the way. Most were just as inconvenienced as she was when they were suddenly pulled into battle against their will. Most of the time, she simply burned them to get them to go away. Petty burns that would heal in a day. 

There was one particular encounter though. She had neared a long, winding wooden bridge that she knew would take her to Snowdin. She avoided using it whenever she could but on this particular day, she skimmed across the bridge towards the junction. She was just about to turn the corner when a voice called out to her.

“EXCUSE ME! YOU THERE! BROWN FUR?” Hazel flinched at the loud noise, flattening her ears as she turned to find the source. Oh. Oh, this was a big monster. 

“Can I… can I help you, sir?”

“YES, YOU CAN ACTUALLY!” This monster, another skeleton monster by the looks of it had no problem being heard over the raging winds. He absolutely towered over Hazel by a few feet and by the look of his narrow and lightless sockets, Hazel couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or elsewhere. “MY BROTHER HAPPENED TO LOSE SOMETHING OF HIS LATELY. HAVE YOU SEEN ANY LOOSE PAPERS ANYWHERE, CITIZEN?”

Hazel felt a shred of guilt as she prepared herself to lie to this massive figure. But the curiosity of Sans’ papers were killing her on the inside. She played the act, staring off into space as if thinking but eventually shaking her head.

“Sorry. I haven’t seen any papers, sir. I’ll keep an eye out though.” The skeleton monster seemed greatly distressed, practically begging her to contact the Royal Guard if she or anybody she knew found them. Hazel nodded and when the skeleton had disappeared into the blizzard, Hazel sprinted toward the village. So she was carrying official government papers? Now she was in something deep.

She pushed past the gate at the front of the village, flashing her green badge at the two guards before setting a brisk pace for her cabin. Other surface monsters were still operating out in the fully-fledged blizzard. One monster in particular, a hound monster who called himself Starkh, stopped her just as she entered the alleys to get home. God, could anything else get in her way today?

“A'tal din pruk? You look cold for one with fur,” he teased. Hazel snorted and shook her head. “Where are you going, mak? Why not stay and have a chat?” He seemed to follow her, Starkh being noted as one of the most irritating monsters to survive the sieges. It was a nasty thing to say but Hazel couldn’t help but let her anger spark to like in those moments.

“Can’t talk right now. Il' o'mor a'tal pin im don, praaz a'mor vach a rfnir. A din ik zam m'tishna,” she growled. He cursed under his breath but Hazel heard little to nothing of it. She arrived at her house, quickly unlocking her door with her claw before shutting it and locking it behind her. She put a rock in front of it for good measure.

“Now, what’s on these pages?” She wondered aloud, carefully sitting down against the wall so that she could see the door at all times. She withdrew the first page from her inventory and recounted the strange topic of time disturbances again. “It talks about time; moreso, the process of breaking it... interesting.”

Just finishing the seven pages was an odd experience. The papers were set up like a personal journal. Whoever had written them had researched the study of the flow of time to a great extent. Hazel was no genius but she could understand that the problem that drove the author insane was the amount of deja vu that they experienced on a constant basis. Moreso upon claiming that they knew something in their timeline had ‘changed’. Erred when it wasn’t supposed to. Something about bad memories of the past acting as clues to a bigger and scarier ending.

As the pages progressed, the writing and illustrations grew more and more wilder. The author talked about links. Kinks in these supposed timelines that damaged both the past and future of the timelines in which they disappeared. Hazel straightened up the pages and cast them into her inventory, deciding to simply abandon her reading. Whatever reason Sans and the Royal Guard had for possessing these papers, Hazel wanted no part of it. She’d return them to Sans after work tomorrow with some lame excuse and get as far away from the man as possible. The last thing she wanted was to get mixed up into something like… that.

 

Thank god that the harness Violet had ordered for her last month had arrived only two days ago. The leather straps still dug into her shoulders during particular bounds but Hazel felt a pang of relief as she thudded back over the hills that lead to the central street of Snowdin. Her boss was certainly putting her to work. Violet had ordered her to deliver stock items to every sentry station within Snowdin and it’d taken Hazel until sunset to complete the task.

Even then, she skimmed to a halt at the back door of the shop, taking off the empty harness from her back before pushing into the Inn. The sister simply greeted her with a quick nod. Not that Hazel minded. Violet had pretty much nothing to say but the usual ‘good work now go home’ speech. Hazel left the shop a lot lighter that evening.

She had been dreading getting off of work too. She raised her nose to the breeze and found Sans’ scent leading directly down the street. She peered down the quiet boulevard and crept into the treeline to get closer.

“Any news yet?” Hazel nearly growled with frustration as she crept closer to the house. Undyne. Why was she here? She had seen the house a few times during passing with its colorful strings of lights and its cozy architecture. She hid underneath a large hedge, peering at the house and eavesdropping on the inhabitants.

“NO. NOT A WORD.” The taller skeleton monster from the day before stood next to the balcony, his face stony. “I’VE ASKED NEARLY EVERYBODY IN SNOWDIN IF THEY’VE SEEN THE PAPERS-”

“Your brother was supposed to keep them safe under the counter and now they’re gone!”

“THIS WASN’T HIS FAULT, UNDYNE! HOW WE WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT A BLIZZARD WAS GOING TO HAPPEN YESTERDAY?” Undyne snarled before bringing her fist down hard on the wooden porch beams. 

“Sorry Papyrus. Those papers… Dogamy and Dogaressa lost the trail yesterday afternoon. If nobody finds them, they could be destroyed! That’s our only link with the barrier!”

“I KNOW. I REMEMBER THE INCIDENT JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO. AS WE ALL DO.” The two of them turned back to the house, Undyne sighing before facing back out towards the snow. “WE WILL GET PAST THIS PROBLEM. WE CANNOT FAIL, PAPERS OR NOT.”

“Alright, quit your pep talk, you doofus. Come on. Back inside, otherwise your brother might leave his socks everywhere while we’re not looking.” As soon as the two had gone back inside of the house, Hazel crept out from her hiding place and loitered around the area. Give it… ten minutes. No. Twenty minutes. If she showed up knocking too soon, it’d be too much of a coincidence to simply be that.

She crept over to the porch, keeping low enough so as to not be seen by either Undyne or Papyrus and she ran over her words. She’d keep it simple and make it believable. She screwed up her fur with snow and dirt, making it look as though she had been in a hurry to get there. After half an hour had passed by, Hazel quietly stepped up towards the door and knocked. She waited, tense. It’d taken about two minutes before somebody had actually started to move towards the door. Please be Sans. Anybody but Undyne, she silently begged.

The door opened slowly with a loud creak. Hazel felt the tension leave her slightly as Sans’ stocky form greeted her, his eyes dark and tired before lighting up with surprise. “hey kiddo. what’re you doin’ here?”

Hazel gave him a tired smile that she filled with exhaustion, reaching up to itch behind her ears. “Sans. I’ve been looking for you. I found those papers you were panicking over yesterday.” Hazel could’ve sworn she heard something break from within the house.

“Sans. Who's at the door?” Undyne called, her tone dangerously low. Before Sans could respond, Undyne stormed over, her yellow eyes turning hard and cruel as soon as she had sighted Hazel in the doorway. “You! What do you think you’re doing here?” Hazel heavily flinched as Undyne nearly ran at her, Sans thankfully managing to hold his boss back.

“easy. they’re just new around here.” Hazel quickly nodded in agreement, scuffing the snow with her paws again. What was Undyne’s problem with her? “you’ve got the papers?” Sans interrupted. The other skeleton, Papyrus she remembered, had straightened up, his expression one of confusion.

“Yeah. You’re pretty hard to track down, did you know that?” She didn’t expect Sans to suddenly shuffle her inside, hastily closing the door behind her. The usual uneasiness of being in a stranger’s house spiked again, Hazel resorting to flexing her claws in order to wear down the stress. She didn’t like the hostile look Undyne was giving her. She cleared her throat before drawing the stack of papers out of her inventory. “The papers? I found seven of them while I was working today... Here you go.”

Sans took the papers out of her hands quickly, his eyes scanning each page for anything new before shuffling them and placing them face-down on the table. Undyne began to speak, having gotten up from her chair to pace around the room.

“Did you read them?”

“What?”

“The papers? Did you read them?” Undyne repeated. Hazel could tell that her answer would determine whether she would leave here in one piece.

“No,” Hazel lied, fiddling with her paws in her lap. Undyne seemed to smirk at this before slamming a fist down roughly on the table.

“You had today and yesterday to hunt those papers down from what Sans mentioned and you expect me to believe that you didn’t read those papers? You’re a terrible liar!”

“I didn’t read the papers!” Hazel retorted angrily. “I just stuffed them into my inventory when I found them! I had the chance to reorganize them when I was walking back up here but I never read them!”

“undyne, relax,” Sans interrupted, de-escalating the scene that was quickly unfurling in the large house. He turned back to her, a tired but thankful grin on his face. “didn’t think you’d manage to find all of them.”

“No kidding. You don’t want to know where I found some of those pages,” she commented sarcastically. 

“Where did you find them?” Undyne piped up. “I had the whole guard search the Underground top to bottom.

“All over Snowdin. Most had gotten caught on spiky things due to the blizzard. I tracked them down by their unique scent; it matches the scent of the sentry station where they were apparently blown away from.”

“SCENTS?” Papyrus finally spoke. “THAT CERTAINLY SOUNDS… USEFUL. THANK YOU FOR FINDING THEM… FRIEND.” Hazel flinched at the use of the word but gave Papyrus an uneasy shrug.

Undyne looked as though she were contemplating something troubling in her head, her eyes angrily flipping back to Hazel every other second before she spoke up one last time. “Are you sure you didn’t read the papers? Be truthful. If I find out you’re lying-”

“It’s back to confinement,” Hazel finished sarcastically. She internally brightened at a prospect that would trip them up. “Yes, I know. Again, I didn’t read those papers. I can’t. I can barely make sense of your written language down here. It’s so different from our own.” 

“Oh.” Undyne, finally defeated, snatched the papers from Sans and upon noticing the time, roughly sent Hazel packing out of the door with no words of safety or goodbyes. And that was just the way she wanted it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> 1\. A'tal din pruk?/ Are you alright? 
> 
> 2\. Il' o'mor a'tal pin im don, praaz a'mor vach a rfnir. A din ik zam m'tishna./ I'd rather be inside my house, where it's warm and quiet. And you're not there either.


	11. Split Ends

Tap. Tap. Tap. That was the only sound that had been reverberating around the cluttered laboratory since the blizzard had moved in hours ago. Tap. Tap. Tap. No new ideas. No new realizations. Nothing. Sans scrunched up another useless wad of paper from his desk and tossed it aside, staring nonchalantly at the door to his lab. At least, that’s what he called it. The only light in this cramped room was the small circular one he had installed right over his desk and it was giving him the biggest headache he’d ever had. That was really saying something.

 

Well, that and the migraine was the latest problem life had given him. He began to tap his feet against the desk, fiddling with the pen clutched between his phalanges. He closed his eyes and thought harder. Think. Think. Think. After a few seconds of listening to the snow beat against the door, he put down his pen and stood. He started to pace the room with his hands in his pockets. It was hopeless, wasn’t it? Fixing a problem that didn’t want to be fixed?

 

He should’ve suspected that from the first deja vu moment he had felt. God knew how old he was anyway. He’d lost track all those timelines ago. It was the most he could do to remember how to look after his brother; then again, after the truth had come out during the last timeline- Sans tapped his fingers on the desk again as he passed by the lab door. Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

It’d been months since the last reset. At least, that was what Frisk had told him. The last timeline had been… rough. Another neutral run, that was for sure. At least Papyrus had been spared. It was never fun lazing around as usual when at the back of his mind, his soul told him to intervene. He’d done enough frankly. Both in the past and in the present. The kid could do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t as though his measly efforts were going to change anything.

 

The kid practically danced on the fine line of making friends and causing fights. They decided to ‘change’ halfway through their run of this mockery of a timeline, choosing to befriend the king. Everything had run its course and then… Sans stopped his incessant tapping, once again capturing the stack of papers so that the seven pages floated in front of him. He scanned the contents over as slowly as he could, not finding any different detail in his scribbles of irritation and confusion.

 

The ending of the last timeline had thrown him and the others completely off track. It hadn’t ended at all as a matter of fact. He was there when the kid had tried to destroy the barrier like they always did. Everybody was completely unaware of the secrets at Frisk’s fingertips. Sans knew; the kid had pulled a genocide run in the last run. He wasn’t a fool. Just too lazy to do anything about it. He’d been waiting to see that temporary glimpse of the sun before Frisk would just snatch it away again, as usual. But then something odd had happened.

 

The souls that Frisk had conjured up had all vanished. Into thin air. Sans nearly thought he was having a stroke when the barrier refused to open. And then things got even stranger. He woke up in the woods. Not in his house. Not at his sentry stations. Not at Grillbys. No, he woke up in the middle of the woods covered in snow. What was worse, everybody began to remember strange things too. 

 

It was the first time Sans had ever seen the kid be put on trial; by their own victims nonetheless. All of the previous runs dating back to the very first and each separate memory… Sans could now date all of them. So could the others. They remembered being killed. Remembered being slaughtered at Frisk’s hands. It was an interesting first month. Toriel refused to shelter them, Papyrus wouldn’t dare show up around them, and Undyne? Sans internally winced, doing a small spin in his chair.

 

He couldn’t seem to remember when everybody had stopped hating Frisk. Sans couldn’t care less about Frisk and their behaviors. He was more concerned about this unique timeline. He’d never seen anything like it. At least, he didn’t have the memory of it appearing before. He glanced at the papers before him. In a different timeline, these papers would’ve said something different. Chemical imbalances, photon readings, strange scribbles. In a different timeline, he’d be obsessing over those mysterious papers as he always did.

 

Now, the papers held vague hints about their current predicament. Timelines belonging both within existence and outside of existence at the same time. Broken, merging, and solitary timelines and their properties. But Sans had no clue how to piece the information together. He had asked Alphys to give him a hand but she didn’t have a clue either. Toriel, Undyne, Papyrus, hell, even Asgore knew about the papers!

 

“merging timelines…” Sans had a feeling that there was something significant about that detail. Ever since the last run, Frisk had lost the ability to do… well, anything. They couldn’t load or save anymore. Their life was a lot more dangerous now that they only had one chance to make what they would of their situation. And Asgore was…

 

Like he had stated before, the timeline had kept on going after Frisk had failed to knock down the barrier. The human souls were vaporized and now, Asgore faced many, many dilemmas. The poor king was being pulled in every which way. Should he wait for another seven humans to fall down into the Underground? Should he reap Frisk’s soul and go on a killing spree on the surface? Should he simply do nothing? There was no right answer according to his citizens and his new flood of refugees.

 

Sans groaned. This headache behind his eye sockets was killing him slowly. He was much more prone to them now since he had to think much harder all the time. He snapped his fingers and didn’t even flinch when he hit the bare mattress of his bed up in his room. It was nice and dark in here. Perfect for sleeping and avoiding his responsibilities. But should he? Sans constantly struggled with a lifestyle he had brought upon himself for many, many timelines. Should he continue to be nihilistic and wait for this timeline to simply die out, or should he be doing more?

 

He never got to answer that question seeing as how the moment his fingers hit the blankets, he’d fallen asleep.

 

He awoke in a daze the next morning, surprised that for once he’d gotten up before the birds had even started singing. Maybe it was still nighttime? He rolled off of his bed and stood to check the window. Nope. That was definitely the first sign of early light outside. “huh. guess i’m rising early for once.”

 

Papyrus was still soundly asleep. Sans knew. He’d made it a point to check every morning as to whether Papyrus had made it home. After cracking open his brother’s door to check and spotting him sleeping neatly in his racecar bed, Sans let a grim smile show before softly closing the door and trudging down the stairs and into the kitchen.

 

At least his brother seemed busy. A few neat things had come out of this new timeline. Interesting things that kept him from sleeping away his days in a drunken stupor. Undyne had finally allowed Papyrus into the Royal Guard since he had stepped up in showing Frisk a glimmer of hostility. Toriel was leaving the ruins more and more and was growing more comfortable with being out in the open. And then there were the new monsters underground... 

 

Sans blinked in the dawn light as he took a bottle of cold ketchup out of the fridge and took mild sips of it in between pauses. That had been the biggest change for him. He would’ve never guessed that there had been survivors of the Great Monster-Human war. The history books from back in the day had reported that every monster had been forced Underground centuries ago. If that was the case then how could this timeline have the audacity to differ?

 

There were so many of them. Over four hundred monsters had shown up out of the blue a few months ago. All of them had their own horrible and violent stories to tell. He’d heard only a few from the sole that could understand him. Perhaps the refugees were a part of this merging timeline equation? He’d have to go and see if he could find anything else about them. And maybe, about this whole barrier problem as well. Maybe Alphys had something new? Sans glanced at the clock above the TV. Five in the morning? 

 

Yeah. He’d sleep on it. Five hours later and Sans had awakened to an empty house. Papyrus had already woken up, cooked breakfast, and left thanks to the note attached to Sans’ forehead when he’d woken. 

 

“GOOD MORNING BROTHER!

 

I’VE TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF COOKING BREAKFAST FOR YOU SO LONG AS YOU STAY AWAY FROM GRILLBYS. DON’T THINK I WON’T NOTICE YOU SNEAKING OVER THERE! UNDYNE PARDONED YOU FROM WORK TODAY. SHE WANTS YOU RESEARCHING MORE ABOUT THE ‘PROBLEM’ WITH DR.ALPHYS. SHE SEEMED QUITE IRRITATED SO I WOULDN’T DALLY ON IT. 

 

DO TELL DR.ALPHYS TO STOP BY! UNDYNE TELLS ME SHE’S BLOCKING HERSELF IN WITH HER RESEARCH AND THAT’S NOT VERY HEALTHY! 

 

DO YOUR BEST TODAY, BROTHER! I’LL SEE YOU WHEN I GET HOME!

 

THE GREAT AND HONORABLE PAPYRUS~

 

Sans grinned, folding the note delicately before stuffing it into his jacket pocket. Yeah. Sure bro. He stretched and with a snap of his fingers, appeared right behind his sentry station in Hotland. The doors to the lab were only a minute’s walk away. It was always difficult teleporting from the quiet calm of Snowdin to the thunderous steam jets of Hotland. Many timelines ago, it wasn’t all that strange to perhaps imagine himself rushing out of there with a patchy lab coat on. He was about to start his walk when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.

 

Somebody familiar, he corrected himself, leaning idly against the wall of his station so as to not attract attention. Oh, wait. Wasn’t that the kid? 

 

He said nothing as Hazel strolled by. Weird kid, Sans thought to himself. One of the ‘stronger’ monsters that had fallen down here last month way behind the others. By themself too. She didn’t seem to notice him, talking to herself quietly under her breath as she headed in the same direction Sans was planning on going.

 

Sans focused back on the lab, and as he gradually made his way to the front door, he couldn’t help but listen in on her dulled words. She had skipped the elevator completely and was slowly trudging up the heated stairs that ran all the way up to the third level of Hotland around the CORE. 

 

“Eht mirok g'noma. Fenre mirok g'noma, krosis? Il farh w'nedsah lok med il. God, I hope it's in my pockets. Please tell me I didn't forget it back in the woods…” Sans stilled, glancing out of the corner of his eye as the tip of Hazel’s tail disappeared behind a rock wall. Perhaps the language that the refugees spoke was a key for the odd scribbles on the pages? He doubted it.

 

And from the way that he’d left the lab, things could only get worse. Alphys had found nothing. The poor scientist had worked herself into exhaustion trying to come up with something, but like him, had run into a dead end. It seemed as though that was the only temporary solution to problems; wait and see if you get anything. He was interrupted by his cell phone buzzing. Ah. Papyrus was calling.

 

“sup bro-”

 

“SANS, IT’S PAPYRUS. GET TO SNOWDIN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THE ISER DISTRICT. COME QUICKLY, PLEASE.” Sans jumped as the dial hung up. It was very rare for Papyrus to simply call and hang up without even talking about something off tangent. Sans snapped his fingers, ending up right at his doorstep. A way’s from the Iser District but not that far to where he’d have to run.

 

He could already hear the warning signs from the corner. People were shouting and he sighted Violet rolling down the shield to her shop as her sister, Ruby, locked the door to the Inn. 

 

“Don’t get any closer! Stay back for your own safety! Papyrus, could you enforce a bigger fence around the carnage?”

 

“YES, SIR.” Sans had instinctively hurried around the corner coming face to face with his brother. “SANS! QUICKLY! OVER HERE!”

 

“what… what happened, papyrus?” Where there was supposed to be a peaceful corner of bakeries and clothing shops was a mess of dust and blood. Sans recognized the silvery sheen of monster dust as it blew in the wind, the other guards resorting to placing a magic barrier over the corner to keep the rest of it from blowing away. And right on the concrete, another guard was forcing the face of another monster into the snow.

 

“Don’t move! Stay still-”

 

“I’m begging you, please! I didn’t mean to-”

 

“Silence! You’re under arrest! Lie still or I will be forced to use my magic on you!”

 

“Officer, please-”

 

It was the sight of blood that stopped Sans’ words from flowing. He watched as the guard from before yanked the criminal in question off of the ground, Sans blanching at the sight of the criminal’s face being covered with monster dust, blood, and tears as they kicked and screamed the entire way into the Riverman’s boat. And when the boat had left, a sense of indifference had left Sans feeling… nothing. Something that disturbed him greatly.

 

“come on paps. let the other guards handle it,” Sans attempted, loosely taking Papyrus’ hand in his own as he guided him back home; the home that wasn’t all too far from the grisly accident. That was another thing about this timeline: death was far more rampant now and he couldn’t shield Papyrus from it since Papyrus was a part of the guard.

 

“BUT WE HAVE TO STAY, SANS.”

 

“nah. the other guards will handle it, bro. let’s go clean that armor of yours, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Eht mirok g'noma. Fenre mirok g'noma, krosis? Il farh w'nedsah lok med il./ He hates flowers. Fenre hates flowers, right? I brought a deer haunch with me.


End file.
